《They Shall Burn》


 Prologue: Fire

    Pain, cold hard pain.


    All I can feel is all-consuming, mind-numbing, harrowing pain. So cold, abstract and untouchable it contradicts with its ability to shackle one onto one''s knees, to make one convulse on the ground, to rip open earth in despair and tear your throat with gutural screams.


    I don''t understand it...


    Why is there so much pain, why do I only feel pain. Am I... pain itself? No, I don''t think so... I am not pain, but I feel its entirety.


    Scalding pain deluges my mind, my body. Do I even have a body? Haha... I don''t even know. Only pain exists, pain, pain, pain, pain, PAIN! ONLY PAIN EXISTS!


    IT KILLS ME, IT KEEPS ME ALIVE! BUT ONLY PAIN EXISTS!


    ETERNITY! PAIN! ETERNITY! PAIN! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Pain is my existence, my existence is eternal, thus, pain is eternal! I know the truth! Pain, pain will always prevail. There is no cessation to pain, IT IS, IT WAS, IT WILL BE! No quietus, no death, no valediction to life, will end pain and suffering.


    And so do these flames....


    I don''t know, I don''t remember, I don''t feel, I don''t hear, I don''t see, I don''t taste, I don''t smell. I don''t, I don''t, I don''t, I don''t, I don''t, I don''t, I don''t! I am nothing. I am just pain and fire. Fire and pain.


    The fire consumes me, it makes me feel pain, pain stokes the fire, fire stokes the pain. They intertwine in painful harmony, coil around my very self, snap at me with crimson fangs, take a bite out of my sanity and leave a yawning void. It won''t take long, the fire and pain got me... soon I will be no more.


    I tried to scream but my voice, my thrumming voice, was nothing more than stentorian clangour in the perpetual darkness. The darkness, it suffocated me, weighed down on me... so much darkness. Pain, fire, darkness. All that I am, all that is.


    Woe? No... There is nothing I can direct my lament to, nothing I can do to lessen my pain, the burden, the sins. Pain, darkness, fire, when will it end? I want to give up. I want to succumb to the fatigue, to my lethargic mind. Surviving is cumbersome, let''s just... die... that''s good...


    "Endure... Live on..."


    What? I can''t forsake my own self, I have to prevail!


    Selfish, I began to ignore the pain, shift it into the recesses of my mind, the pain that assaulted me, punished me with divine retribution but I realized, I had to take this burden onto my back, this painful and hard burden, -It has to be done!- at this foreign place. What was this place? There is something, something else entirely from the seething pain. Ah! A word. I know it!


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    Purgatory.... *ahhh*, that''s how they called it, the everlasting flames, breaking will and mind, but...ahahahah... no not with me. I will make the flames burn, I will break the fire''s will! But... what comes next? There was something behind the veil of flames. I- I had to endure, I need to endure! Curious, inquisitve even, I wanted to know what existed behind the sempiternal sea of sanguine waves. Waves of fire... So. Much. Fire. I had to know! But the fire is painful, don''t go. But I will, I can, stand tall, face off against the flames. The pain will kill you! The pain will be eternal! But so am I, I-I will stand above it! You throw your life away, stop it! You are broken! Kneel and submit to the flames! I won''t submit, I won''t submit to the flames, to you!  YOu haVE to SuBMit, concede to the pain!!! I WILL NOT, I WILL NOT SURRENDER MYSELF!!! FOOL, yOu HAve nO iDea! I wiLl BrEak yOu! Make you kneel...


    Y-YoU SHalL bURn!!!!

 Chapter one: Flames

    There it was, a sonorous, a well-nigh symphonic -if one might say so- voice, if not for its menacing echo that thundered through the darkness.


    It was an impalpable voice, a commanding roar drenched in madness, furry and ire. It tried to enthrall me, lure me with lies, lies of despair and weakness. It slumbered whenever it didn''t command the fire, made it obey.


    I tried my best against the voice, stretched out to the fire, I wanted to control it, but it lashed back. It eyed me with predatorial eyes, feral and fiery it stalked me. It preyed upon my mind, made the most peaceful of times disfigure into a rendition of agony. I struggled, fought back but it only screamed with its power and I cowered down.


    The voice wanted me to cave in, to give up and let myself fall into the abyss that were the crimson flames. It coaxed me, then threatened and then commanded. But apart from the rending and riven, detached and cold bellow there was another much more soothing voice, it gave me a sliver of hope whenever the flames reached out with their whipping tongues of fire.


    The second voice was crisp clear. Clear but rare and silent, like it was dying. Brisk and high-pitched its summerly voice made me remember images of lush green and wide, and slow, and peaceful plains that lulled you with... with... grass. Emerald blades, some soft some sharp, but all equally birthed from Nature''s plenty womb. Fluting like strips of tender silk they danced in pairs with wind and light. It was so... beautiful. I loved it, I had loved it. But.... why did they descend. Why has it returned? It''s slumber was broken, silence cried in its ears, the darkness had ears, ears and eyes. They stared back and listened to the shattering silence. No, please....


    "NO! THiS it''s mine Is nOt yOURs feel the pain! BURN!"


    And I burned, I burned and squirmed, burned and cried, burned and sobbed. No solace to keep me on my legs, only the booming voice and my meek, soft cries. It hurt so much!


    ''Why? It was there again, the pain, the voice, the flames. I need to subdue it! NO NO NO NO! DON''T DO IT! M-my peace, my haven, my heaven, why, why do you destroy it?!''


    "IT HURTS SO MUCH!"


    Cackling the flames began to descend onto the scenery of tranquility. Mad, furious I pryed them from the patch of grass. Sobbing and screaming I ripped the flames apart but, but... THERE WAS NO END! They returned with numbers that could not be counted. A mass of rolling red, a mess of bursting crimson, a carpet of death.


    Each flame bore another; twin flames turned to four, then eight, then sixteen. They continued to fracture my memory; my untainted plot of land, my home, my life! The flames consumed everything, they burped with fiery crackling, laughed with diabolic sizzles, they were unstoppable. My will was unpliable, the urge to survive the baptism of flames, but all I wanted was to fear away, huddle in the darkness while the fire ravaged whatever shreds of a self they could find. I was defenseless in front of the fire.


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    "Why?", I asked the darkness, the evil that churned whatever I could come to love into unrecognizable chaos. "Why? What have I done?". I waited in the fire, in the darkness, in crushing pain.


    Askew, broken, impervious a gutural rattle laughed back. "Hahaha...What have you done?", the question was cold and harried my broken mind with its simpleness; ''Was it rhetorical? Should I know the answer? So, what have I done?'' I wanted to speak aloud, ask the thumping darkness and waving fire around me but what would I make of the answer? A tugging in my, in my, what was it called? There it was, a little tug at my innermost self -it was weak-. It gave me an answer, a vague answer that the voice could not provide. I hoped so. I hoped so, dearly. It just couldn''t be true; the connection mustn''t be made


    I had a hunch, a feeling as if there was more to the voice, more than I wanted to acknowledge, more than I could endure. But the voice couldn''t know that, it couldn''t know my emotions, couldn''t know the turmoil in my heart, could it? It had to be that way. There is no way... there is just no way... It can''t be. I felt it, a grin sported my ego. The smile grinned all around me, flesh stripping fangs, blood-thristy breath, it smiled and snickered. ''That''s right...''


    Flames, flames surround me. But did they surround me... or...? It was so easy. The answer was so simple, but was it the answer I hoped for? No, far from it. I laughed, the fire cackled, the pain joined with a screech, that voice cried, this voice laughed. It was so simple, nay, simple wouldn''t cut it. It was stupidly simple! It was hilarious even! My grin, I couldn''t help but smile, delightful, gloatingly about the flaring idea.


    All of it made sense, the voices, the pain, the fire, the darkness. It came so sudden, the realization, an abrupt epiphany of soul. It, it was right. Hahaha... HAHAHA.... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! SO SIMPLE!


    The three voices, the commanding one, the fighting one, the supporting one. They were one, they were the same. Was it the voice that echoed or was it... or was it my heart? My heart that suffocated me, ensanguined was it, blood smeared and marked as the heart of sinning. Thump, thump; Die, die; Thump, thump; Kill, Kill!


    Sins, fire, pain, darkness and yet the little hope; albeit there was only a flake of hope, it was and it will be, it sufficed. I was all of it. It was so plainly obvious. Purgatory, it was not a place, they had it all wrong, those morons! It was me!


    I cried in pain, but in the end I was pain, I despaired, but in the end I was the despair that circled you all, I was hopeful and I was hope that guided the way, I was the abyss, I was the darkness, I... I...-


    I AM THE FIRE!

 Chapter two: Purge

    As the voice said, I had been a fool.


    The flames, the fire, the searing inferno, it never destroyed me, killed me or tore my very own self apart, it simply cleansed, yes, it cleansed me. Like a purifying fire can cleanse the dirt from brillinat ores so did the flames to my own self. They marred this, this useless hull off of my being, they made me understand what I really am.


    The heat, the hot scars that cleft and created ridges into my soul, they were all necessary. For the greater good, for the oncoming inferno, it had to be done.


    I was baptized by the fire anew, reshaped by their blazes and turned into something much grander. Confusingly I had not adapted to the fire''s volatile temper, instead I became... rational, sane. It was bizarre, truly bizarre. But something pricked at my mind, yes the vocie, the voice of hope. Fire was chaos, living destruction, but I knew there was another meaning, closely entangled with hope, to fire. The aspect of fire, it breathes, lives and grows; it destroys and razes life from its ground, ash is left. Ash..... there was this distinct something, on the tip of my... tongue? I was unsure how to define myself.


    For a moment I let the thoughts sink in, they sagged into a dense mud of uncertainity and endless questions. What was I? The flames and pain, purgatory; yes but also no. I was more, I could feel it. Where do I come from? The idea I had been created, born, and was not simply ''there'' stemmed from the absence of any memories of an eternal past I should have experineced before this... punishment?... Tribulation? Was it the darkness that bore me? Another vague answer, yes and no. I was unsure what to make of the situation.


    Since I could control the flames I and the voice became one, we were one after all. It gave me back parts of my sanity, as if everything that the fire consumed was only locked away, but why? Why have I locked away my own self? This much I could reason as ''I was hiding myself, wasn''t I?''. But something more meaningful peaked over this sudden insight. A mountain''s peak covered by clouds, such was my mind right now.


    The questions reared their ugly heads, lampooned me and my ignorance. A red wave surged from my core, they dared! I was furious and the flames reacted with me. They roared like starving beasts and pounced onto my mind, ripped apart every-and anything that bothered me. ''No, I am in control.'', I urged myself and began to stifle the flames, tame them and keep them in check. It was hard work, the fire was more destructive than I could ever hope to imagine. They were unbound by anything besides myself and I only worked as a small tether that gave the flames an illusion of imprisonment. If they wanted to, those sentient flames, they could easily penetrate whatever defense I could muster to restrict them. But for now they kept low, purred with menacing crackles whenever I wielded them.


    Too many questions. This was my life, if one could call such a miserable existence as such. I was nothing more than a prisoner in the darkness. The fire was one thing but the darkness was something entirely else. It had no emotion it was not even ''dark'' in the sense of absence of light, it was a nothingness filled to the brim by the void. Paradox, eh? I know but there was nothing that could explain it. Pain, I could couch it in words. Fire, it was something far more than primal, the knowledge of it, it was inside me all the time. But this?! This was something that drifted apart from the realm of existence. Limbo, Nirvana, Chaos. It''s purest form was a unstable void, something threatening to spring forth every second. Eyes and ears, the darkness had those. Unlike the fire, a part of myself, this darkness was an entity for itself and it ignited fright inside me.


    I shifted my thoughts to and fro, away from the darkness but I was pulled back in. The darkness was intriguing. dangerously intriguing. When whatever I could call myself and constructed my body reached forward I felt a numbing sensation in my mind. Ticklish at first but the more I fought back at the alarm bells that sounded through my being the intenser the tingle became, from a little numbness to agonizing pain that could dwarf the fire''s torture.


    In time I learned to fear the darkness, to not touch or even get close to it. But it was all around me! What was I supposed to do?! So I kept myself busy with questions that need to be tend to.


    Images, wording, fragments of memories. They all popped out of the fire, they were from a time before the fire consumed them and twisted them. The fire retched it all out when I commanded it. The idea to force the flames to let whatever they wolfed down resurface came intstinctive. Something in those memories called out to me, something that had to prove itself as helpful.


    But everything was charred, crumpled and tattered. Nothing of worth, only the faint idea that something in there could be the key to many questions. Where the idea ccame from, I can''t say. They simply come and go whenever they want. It was like a glimpse back in time where I saw things that were forgotten shortly after. I was a forsaken existence, another idea that blossomed from bright flashes of memories and thoughts. But as bright as they were as short did they last.


    I was scrutinizing over the various questions and problems, but they kept being spewed out from who knows where. I got the answer to one but two took its place. AH! another flash of inspiration. A hydra! Slay one of its head and two will regrow, those questions were oddly resembling a hydra. They would multiply the more I answered, felled, an uncanny property if you ask me.


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    And see! There it was again. I knew what to make of these questions but why, how and from where did I get the answer. A hydra! A mythical creature, there was no such thing in this void, there was no such thing extant but I knew there was something that believed in their existence. What were they? They had a name... they... they were knowledgable but more so greedy and egoistical. Fickle creatures of deceit, only the rarest were beings worthy of trust.


    What were they called....


    They had a name...


    A foreboding drumming bommed in my mind, it was the same, the same with the darkness. It even exceeded the writhing agony of the darkness. I was feeling unwell, nauseous, I wanted to vomit with my incorporeal body, disgust. I was DISGUSTED!


    The drumming got louder, the next epiphany was close. I felt it rush into my mind, overspeeding and turning into a blur of information. So sudden, my ''breath'' balked, the flames were silenced, there was no pain, there was nothing anymore. Even the darkness was just background at the moment.


    Humans.


    That''s how they were called. Hum... There was something. Humans... hahahah... they are funny, all red, covered in gore and flesh. Yes, they are indeed funny........ ahahahaha...


    Humans. Little more than apes. Just a bit more than primates. And yet so endlessly more arrogant. It was comical. How could that be?


    Humans are so... weak, need protection, they are helpless. Yes, humans don''t amount to much, with their warped grimaces and masks of betraying love; humans are... despicable, small, vain, conceited, impotent, evil, scathing, destructive, truculent, hateful, bastardous, treacherous, insidious, spiteful, disgusting, ignorant,pitiful, wretched, malignant, doomed...; they are the bane of existence. They need to be wiped from the face of the world...


    Humans... HUMANS! I hate them. I don''t know wh-! *!!!!!!* It was them... IT WAS THEM! They took it away from me, they took them away from me, ripped them apart from my soul, from the special place I kept them inside! It was none other than the humans! THE HUMANS, WHO ELSE?! How... HOW DARE THEY?!


    "HUMANS!!!!! -You will all perish-!!!!!!."


    They took it from me... hehehehe... So I will take from them.... Hahahahaha.... I will pURgE them, EVErYONeeeE.


    "AHAAHAHAHAAHAHA!"


    With a final manical laugh the curtains openned for the first act and I bathed in the lights of the stage that would soon be mine. Perish, so it shall be.... I will let the flames rain upon them.

 Chapter three: Red sky

    (This one is longer and will introduce the world, not really since no names will be given excpet for one. I hope you enjoy this chapter and tell me where I should improve on my third-person and first-person writing. The chapter should be out yesterday but RL problems made it difficult for me :( . I hope you can forgive me, your dear author! :D ENJOY!)


    HAHAHAHAHA! There it was, the darkness parted. I was Moses and the darkness was my sea, it did as I dictated. It was a wonderful feeling and for the first time in my life, in my damned existence there was something entirely different from the darkness, the pain, the fire. A light!


    The light was far and close at the same time, a rift in the horizon, gleaming with solar prominence second to none.


    I couldn''t shield my eyes, my freely floating sight, from the brilliant beacon of warmth and liberation and... salvation.


    "PAHAHAHAHA!", the light erred, this stupid divine light! It would bestow me with the gift of freedom, ignorant of what it was unleashing, of what it was setting loose. Idiots! My fire, my lifeblood, it boiled in trembling expectation for the forthcoming carnage, the approaching doom, the imminent chaos! Nothing to fetter me anymore, nothing to keep the gurgling hate inside me waiting. Revenge, destruction, blood and fire.


    I thanked the light, approached it as another insight birthed from the darkness. Like a phoenix from the ashes, the aspect of ash and fire. Destruction and rebirth! That was the missing piece, another missing piece.


    I had died once already, but I will be born anew. I will shed my weak husk of mortality. I will embrace the fire, the death. For I am fire, I am death. Life will change, now I am more powerful, more vengeful, more... free.


    "I... AM... FREEEEE!!! UNSHACKLED!"


    Bathing in the light I took step after step, resolute and unwavering I approached the light, turned the rift into a gaping chasm of delightening radiance.


    My arrival......... MY ADVENT WILL BE HERALDED BY FIRE, BY BLooD and... BY DARKNESS!


    Mountains shall return to dust, wind shall sing hymns of death and rivers shall be scoured by crimson. My flames will feast on thousands and my grip shall crush millions. The humans... will pay with their lives!


    Exhilarated, squired by a cacophony of mad laughter by an even madder self, I dove straight through the light.


    Smoke formed into ash grey caudates as they ascended into the sky. A throng of people sat, rather, huddled with shacking bodies and breaking voices inside a dark and yet spacious corner of an old, decrepit cathedral. Statues of deities littered the room, strewn across and between rows upon rows of hard wooden benches. With hard faces, cold and made by stone, they mocked the weak mortals as they shivered, seeked shelter and refuge from the bloody reality outside.


    The young ones, the elderly, man, woman, none were spared from the silver iron, and how it descended with a horrifying screech, mincing those whom they had known. But now those people were no more, cruel reality turned them into brittle corpses. Rigid and unmoving they slowly became one with the ground their blood was spilled on.


    The mass of terrorized humans jolted up with each scream of pain, outcry for help and roar of lunacy that sounded through the broken windows. Red light, twinkles of fire, crept through the windows, painted an image of carnage and destruction, of what happened beyond those walls of stone, for those poor souls to see and admire in terror.


    A little girl cried out, her mind exhausted from the constant strain of noise, the smell of blood and burned flesh that permeated through the large, barricaded entrance and the broke windows. Her pitiful cry shattered the mixture of silence created by fear and the background din of cackling and iron hitting iron. Those around her smited the little girl with their stares. ''How dare you?!'', those eyes seemed to say, oozing with spite for the little girl. But she was innocent, they all were. It was just that those people delusioned themselves into an ignis fatus of comfort, although they knew their end was near, something they simply couldn''t bear. (DJ BRAND in the house!)


    But the people outside did not care. They raised their weapons, let their man-made steel executioners rain from above and mauled their victims'' bones and flesh. The horde of men, pillaging, raping, killing, reveled themselves into a murder spree, a delirium of slaughter.


    Spittle and blood sprayed into the air, colored the ground crimson, the corpses further feeding the hungry fires with their ashen caudates. Of course there were those that tried to fight back, with immense pugnacity! They would not let their small town succumb to the likes of wild bandits, no, no, no. They would fight and win! Is what they thought.


    But the moment the nobles smelled the danger in the air they turned tail and fled, their entourage of guards and servants closely behind, not trying to miss a chance to bootlick their masters. Those pitiful peasants, nothing but plebs in the eyes of the nobles.


    With any kind of defense gone there was nothing the citizens could do. Wild but nonetheless trained and experienced bandits took their lives, one after another.


    Yet some did not despair, some did not yield and stood resolute, a bastion of calm, and faced the waves of crazed bandits. From pitchforks to crude knifes and sharpened sticks, the denizens of this unfortunate town heard their inner call to arms. Equipped with frail weapons, but weapons indeed, they took their stand and faced off against the bandits.


    People killed people, not a tad better than beasts. They tumbled over each other, smashed their heads onto the ground and cracked open skulls like porcelain, they turned limbs into stumps with rusted daggers. Human cruelty peaked as they pushed each other into the flames, pressed flesh onto melting steel and wild fire. Flesh mend with earth and metal. It was brutal.


    Even the most innocent of objects, sacred memorials, were defiled by death. Be it a gilded cross or the pendant of a loved one, as long as they could scoop out an eyeball or cut a vein they served their purpose. So pitiful.


    Some of the citizens even had the audacity to think they were getting the upperhand; but then came the archers. A group of no more than 20 stormed through the city gates, drapped in black cloaks and bows strapped on their back they kneeled onto the ground, right in front of the brutal melee.


    They jabbed their massive longbows into the porous earth, muffled beats echoed through the soil; the town was far from being able to afford paved streets and now their last riches were taken from them.


    Ell-long arrows were fished out of their leather quivers and nocked onto their bowstrings, slowly they began to pull back. The wood groaned as the mens'' muscles tensed and the strings of Father Death''s harp began to tauten to their utmost limits. The arrows'' black shafts gleamed in the conflation of red and opal luminescence in a mysterious and enrapturing light, the last thing those first unfortunate citizens will see.


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    *Haaah!*, the group of men exhaled synchronous, a melody of death began to hum in the air, it whispered the citizens  their bitter fate.


    Moments later the silver tips of the thick arrows found their prey. Chest, head or stomach, even the lightest scratch on a limb was fatal. Those arrows that didn''t kill distracted their victims with their sharp pain long enough to be hacked down by another bandit.


    The archers leaned back, relaxed their arms for a second and fumbled the next arrrow from their quivers. The next salvo executed those that survived the first. But this was not the only platoon of archers, all around the small town the bandits began to raze the town from its roots. Not a single soul was excused in the name of mercy.


    And so they landed outside the cathedral, its insides brimming with the last hundred survivors. Cries of sorrow and curses gushed from the sacred building.


    "COME OUT YOU LOT!", the men outside screamed. "IF YA DON''T WANT YOUR FAMILY KILLED GET OUT!", they lied but alas those last survivors were not foolish enough to believe in such cheap words.


    The problem with the cathedral was not only its fortification but also the barrier that surrounded it. The windows might be broken and air passes through but not one object, not one projectile could pass up to a certain point. They all would be disintegrated by the force of the barrier at this certain point.


    The cathedral''s bishop placated the mass of bewildered humans, plodding he walked up the stone podest at the front. In his white and golden robe he let his sight wander over his lost little lambs.


    "My friends, do not fear. The barrier of our Goddess Sylvana will protect us! I cannot empathize with you, no one can. We lost to much, to many of our friends, of our family, but those... those monsters will get their divine retribution.", the old man''s voice lowered an octave and his gaze became solemn. "I don''t want to encourage you into delighting onto those mens deaths, but... but then I would be lying. I want to see them as dead as you. Might our goddess forgive and protect us.", he flailed his hands into the air in a display of grandeur, yet everyone was too weak, too frightened to actually give a response.


    The old man sighed, he aged considerably in those few seconds, and mumbled to himself. "I just hope they don''t have any mages. Or else...", he let his sight drift over the young children and the defenseless adults. "...we are doomed."


    "Tch! Those fucking dogs! Men, surrounded the church, don''t let anyone leave. Smoke those rats out!". A tall and lean man barked out orders to the bandits. Apart from the savage and beastial look in his eyes he could be considered handsome, what a shame his life took such a turn...


    The men ushered through the streets, collected the black charred wood and piled it onto the flanks of the church. A giant ring of black coal surrounded the cathedral, and soon it was ignited by those feral men, with fell mien. They licked their lips with foul breath and pressed the logs closer against the stone.


    The tall man, the ''commander'' presumably, nodded towards his subordiantes. Both of his hand twitched around his two tainted daggers as he too waited for the prey to leave its hideout.


    Hot, it was incredibly hot inside the church. Giant pillars of fire rose into the sky and covered the stone walls in a demonic red. The refuges gazed out the windows only to see the rolling mass of red churning around their notional safe haven. Oh! How much they began to despair!


    Sobbing quietly the adults kept their emotions locked inside. With weak and hazy eyes they hugged each other, sought safety in their brothers and sisters, friends and family, and even strangers.


    With prying, beady eyes the children watched their parents, neighbors or elders, hug each other with bitter resentment. Ignorant of what was transpiring their hearts were encumbered in the sadness of losing a loved one but certainly not the realisation that their time was soon. They were just children, innocent and pure, how could they know?!


    The heat spreading through the stone slabs turned unbearable and soon those hundreds of people began to feel the wrath of the flames. They wanted vengance for their chained brothers, abused as oillamps or furnances.


    They stood up with trembling knees, with tears in their eyes and unspoke grief clogged in their throats.


    Frightened they took each others hands, hugged the young children although they barely knew each other, and stepped towards the exit. Everything was better, less painful rather, than being burned alive. The only consolation was the hope for a quick death.


    The bishop offered a final prayer, his knees pressing against the torrid stone. He gnashed through the pain and prayed, gave the people behind him his blessing, and then stood up likewise. A trickle of saline tears rolled down his cheeks.


    Brave and valiant the survivors pushed against the double doors, the greedy shouts of the bandits and the roars of the fire turning into a wave of noise. They did not want to die, not yet, not like this...


    "MAMAAAA!", the little gril from before shouted and sprinted towards a deathly pale corpse. The woman''s face was aghast with horror and pain, her eyes and mouth gaped wide open, a last desperate scream clinging onto her lips, trying to narrate of this woman''s ugly fate.


    The small and frail girl hugged the lifeless body with her tiny arms, nudged her face into her mother''s nape. She seeked comfort in her mothers melodious voice, her warm embrace but what welcomed her were rigorous fingers, colder than ice.


    "NO! NO! NO! NOOOOO! MAMA!!!!!", an unbelieving squeal escaped from the little girl, she understood the situation clearly. Her mother was dead, she would never wake up again, never talk again, never breath again. Her soul was lost, her life, only darkness remained, a darkness that could not sate this young girl''s desire for love and protection. And so the girl shouted, shouted towards the heavens with all her might. She wanted her mother back, she wanted her old life back, she wanted everything to be peaceful again.


    But no God replied to her curses, her cries for help. No one did except the hungry bandits that circled the poor girl. They could already envision her body dismembered at a roadside, torn apart by dull blades, maces or bare hands. Insane, those people were insane.


    Creeping shadows loomed over the little girl, her blinking and puffed eyes were hollow as she let her gaze land on her mother''s murderers.


    She did not fall back, she did not retaliate, she only wanted to see her mother smile again. As she waited she let her young live pass through her minds eye. A normal life for a commoners family, filled with friends and small trials, she was happy those ten long years. The good ones die young.


    Horrifying cackles errupted around her as silver flashes rose into the air. She followed the argent trail with her eyes and let her sight rest on the sky.


    *Plop*


    Rain, soft rain plummeted down. down from a clear sky?


    One raindrop turned into ten, then hundreds, then thousands and finally a massive downpour washed over the town as though the heavens lamented over what was to come.


    The rain was warm and tender, it was equally falling onto the living as on the dead.


    The girl sniffed and rubbed with her dirty sleeve over her face, in the light of the fire she saw her arm tainted red. Confused, more than ever, she looked onto the ground. The ground that was once brown, ashen, was now crimson.


    Her confusion did not lessen and instead she directed her eyes upwards again, towards the non-existing clouds.


    And there it was!


    A black scar in the high-heavens, a dark cleft, and inside was a small red dot, inconspicuous even. Blood dripped down from the lacerated and maimed heavens. A broken sky, dead Gods, bathing the world in dark red, in the wine of the damned, the blood of sacrifice. And forth from the deepest pits of hell a mad devil, an arbiter of carnage, the progenitor of fire, roared deafening for the whole world to bear witness.


    "I... AM... FREEEEE!!!"


    And so... on this day the sky was painted red.

 Chapter four: Inferno

    (I did not want to make this chapter an info dump, the next one probably will be one :( . I do hope you enjoy this chapter, its kinda different and less psycho but I tried to flesh out the MC''s character some more. He should be understood as an arrogant destroyer that hates humans, I even did a whole paragraph where he calls a human only ''it'', tell me where I should improve there. Oh right, another thing, could you suggest some names that would fit a Deity of fire and destruction? I would be really thankful for that. Anyway, enjoy this chappy, I hope the grammar and spelling is good enough -so that I don''t need to proofread it :P-. ENJOY! :D )


    I felt so... so... so powerful! Invigorated and full of desire! It was a foreign feeling with a tint of nostalgia. From my memories I could deduce that I had once lived, and something dearly was taken from me. By humans...


    It mattered not now... now I needed a second to enjoy my freedom. I wanted a moment of peace, as contradicting as it may sound for a being that is nothing less than destruction and chaos incarnate. For a single instance I wanted to breathe a cold gust of air, be freed of the oppressive vastness of the darkness.


    My hands, they were different. I didn''t know how my body looked before but I had a hunch it did not look like what I was now. It was a bizarre feeling, being reminded that this is your second life, so dream-like and yet the truth. I was conflicted with my emotions, at least those few that squirmed inside me apart from anger. But soon enough the fire inside me blazed through my mind, a pyroclastic flow of cleansing hate drowned out all emotions.


    What was I even thinking?! It was pathetic, really. Starring at my hands like some mongrel, like some human! I was no human anymore! I was something beyond the limits of what humans could achieve, I fused with the raw essence of fire, darkness and pain, I was as far from a human as it could get. The truth was a simple one. I discarded my humanity long ago, I might have never had one to begin with! I was destruction, carnage, but not human. Sad? No, it was exhilarating!


    Below my feet was a whole new beginning, a whole new world to... to... blight? To bring to ruin? No... it was not the world at fault. When the child sins it is not the mother''s fault. Likewise when humans sin it is not the world''s fault. I would be their judge then, not their destroyer. A king that judges equally but those not hector his vassals. A good idea, an idea with backed-up foundation.


    I was superior, this assumption did not birth from arrogance but rather the might that cursed through my fleshed out body. My veins gleamed red with the thick plasma of energy inside me, I just felt the power, the ineffable power of a God! A mountain turning into a valley, into dust and ash; a sea turning into a desert; nothing was impossible with my strength, my unsurmountable strength!


    My body in itself was an image of power. Ashen crust with crimson veins of coiling lava, of pure cataclysm, and a core of abyssal magma. I was the embodiment of wrath, a living force of nature, act of God. My touch would ignite the fabric of reality and my breath could incinerate space itself, my gaze was judgement day itself and my words a call for the heavenly trumpets. Life, death, those concepts were to frail for one such as myself. As I was the law of creation itself!


    What was there to fear, what was there to fret? All my little lambs would receive their punishment, all those sinners will repent!


    I cracked my lips apart, hard pieces of black bedrock hailed down with power that could be mistaken for dark shooting stars. Crooked and jagged I forged myelf jaws with rows of obsidian fangs and an endless maw with hell itself residing within. I felt my charred lips form a devious, diabolic grin; my umbral fangs simmered with unbearable bloodthirst. I did not know where it stemmed from but there it was. The urge to make myself look human persisted through my hate, as much as I hated it I WANTED human resemblance in this form. It hurt me, it was agonizing to share even a single trait with those... those filthy beasts. Albeit I took pleasure in the thought that this way those pesky humans would at least understand WHAT judged them. I was their judge, nay, the jurisdiction of life itself so to speak, and I had to make them understand.


    And there awaited the first defendants, waiting paitently for me to pass judgment, how kind...


    Beautifully I descended in a torrent of dark blood and flakes of ash. 300? No, at least 500 were to be spoken guilty. Ahhhhhh, I could taste their blood on my lips already. So nurturing and warming, slightly coppery but with a rich and spicy aftertaste like game. Oh, the taste of the wild, of meat, how I missed it. I hadn''t tasted it yet but I instictively knew I would savour it to the last morsel.


    "Ah! How most irreverent of me! I haven''t even introduced myself.". How impious would it be if the butcher forgets to greet his goods? The wrath inside me was visceral, deep rooted, but I did my best to connive my hate as to greet my guest with a smile like a good host does.


    "Demise, I am nothing more and nothing less for you lot. You can call me as such.", I dropped a light curtsy with a fiendish smirk. Now kneel, my prey... your fates are sealed by death...


    Oh God, why do I have to be punished?! Those insects had yet to realise what was happening! Their ugly faces contorted in bemusement, their squinting and purulent eyes posed questions into the air. Their lips smacked shut, openned and they looked at each other for answers. My... my patience was running dry with those imbeciles, those incompetent fools. Had I made a mistake in trying to talk with them? Hahahahaha... how silly of me, I couldn''t even speak their primitive language! Pahahahaha! Hum... How does a God communicate with his believers? How does the wolf talk with his victim? Yes... how could I convey my verities to them?


    *ZOOOOM*


    ''No no no NO... NO!'', my train of thought, which I so toilsome tried to maintain, was actually disrupted by... by an arrow, a wooden toothpick. NO NO NO!


    There, obliterated down to its moleculess the arrow was nothing more than ash. I crunched, cracked my volcanic claws and writhed my quaking visage towards the insect that damned itself with a life full of torment. Slightly amused I watched it tremble, hold dearly onto its bow as if the weak wood could protect it from what was about to come.


    Quicker than anyone could react I latched onto this blasted creature, my talons gripped vice-like onto its jawline and tearing its bones apart. While it squirmed with pitiful whimpers under my grip I slit its throat open with a simple swipe of my shard-like claws, hence its miserable whining turned into a cherry gurgling. My sight landed on the auburn blood, and how it viscously welled out from the grievous cut and slid down along the human''s neck and collarbone. I smacked my obsidian lips as thunder errupted inside my core, my bottomless stomach needed its fodder.


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    With ragged breath I approached the man''s lifeblood, each drop counting down the human''s remaining time. My maw widened, my jaws creaked apart and revealed a burning gorge, its terrible heat bringing about a gust of aridity. What could only be my eyes stared deeply into the pitiful man''s soul. I saw its sins, the killing of hundreds, raping innocent women, innocent girls, and worst of all... trying to put a scratch on me! This was a sin that could not be condoned. I let my flames consume him from the inside out, burn his memories and soul to cinders. I snickered at the sight of those dead and dark eyes, the only light the embers that were burning inside, yet I took pity on this foul creature. And so my jaws snapped, those black fangs of mine rushed into the bastard''s flesh and eviscerated him like a pack of wolves.


    Thick and refreshing blood flowed into my mouth, so sweet and ferrous. By the Heavens! It was truly delicious!


    In a warm and calming rain of blood I shred the man''s body to pieces, for his brothers to admire. However, those maggots were actually impudent enough to try and shot me with another salve of those black arrows. Blind, humans are blind! They are not only incredibly stupid they are also blind.


    I ignored their fallacy, the thought that they could hurt me -What a joke!- and further delighted on the corpses remains. I wolfed the body down and let it plummet into the endless abyss that were my insides. For a few moments the fire inside me seemed to smother, calm and collected it devoured the flesh that was chucked at the it. With the flesh ininerated and the lifeforce gone the fire began to rage in fury and hunger for more. With great effort I kept my growing desire for more carnage at bay, but only for a moment.


    I took a second to extract the information out of the fire, those parts that were not lost in the crimson ocean. In a moment''s fraction I was in the possession of the man''s knowledge. Language, culture, social hierarchies and the government. Personal memories and experiences were unimportant, In fact it would disgust me to re-live this man''s memories, the fact was true for every human I would cross paths with.


    It was my first time trying to siphon memories out of the flames that were not my own, but it worked just fine. What a pleasant surprise.


    My flames puckered up once I was done with skimming essential informations from the tangle of knowledge, with soft crackles it plead for sweet release, how could I refuse my own self?


    A defeated sigh escaped my infernal throat, it was more of a deafening roar, really. Whilst shacking my head I let all hell loose on the armed humans around me. Onto those weak-willed and disgusting creatures, those that called themselves bandits. What I hated more, much more, than humans were humans that killed other humans. My soul palpitated in bursting ire whenever I thought about the atrocities those demons commited. Not only did they butcher their own kin, they even tried to lay their filthy hands on me. I AM A GOD! HOW DARE THEY?!


    "WORTHLESS! ALL OF YOU!", the blusterous bawl involuntarily escaped my lips.


    I let the air around me ignite in a myriad of hellish flames and an explosion of wrath. My vision was red, I needed the bloodshed, the carnage, right now. I felt my self being drawn towards the dead and the damned; the blood, it whispered dolce cruelty into my ears and all I did was smile with the voices in my head.


    Breaking the will of the fire that took the run-down houses their home I commanded them with a snap to rise into the air and demand payback from the mortals that wanted to use their power.


    Pillars of pure hell surged into the starry sky and became stars of their own at the red painted firmament. Snarling fire drowned out the cries for help of the dozens of humans that were swallowed whole inside the obelisks of crimson. Brazen some tried to defend against the usurping inferno, but everyone, everything turned to hollow husks, masks of agony their faces and charred boughs their limbs. The unfortunate ones that escaped the tidal wave of fire were personally ended by no one less than my humble self.


    I gripped them at their fragile skulls, drove my claws deep into their marrow and let the fire eat them apart. They tried to cry, how cute, but their welling tears dried as their eyes bursted, combusted, by the raging heat inside. Plumes of smoke left their orifices like liquid, ghastly they took on the form of the deceased and tried to escape heavenwards, clawed with their wraithlike hands at the sky in an abject attempt to flee. Sparkling and quaint I let the fires singe their world deep-red, consume the souls that were bold enough to try the escape. The banshees whailed but the fire took no pity on them. Death takes you all equally.


    In seconds my flames licked the world clean of this plague, what was left was the shivering lot behind me.


    My breath calmed down, the fire died out with a last sizzle. Cold wind dispersed the ashes, made the statues of death crumble and fall apart, their screaming faces the last that would be remembered of them.


    "Innocent.", I judged them and began to trod away. Inferno was approaching and for now I kept enough of my sanity to not slaughter wantonly. Something stopped me from destroying this whole world, let it burn in my hatred. Maybe I still had hope for the humans, for those forsaken beings? Memories of red steel made my thoughts waver, appealed onto the fire to consume everything.


    No, I will judge them accordingly, but for now they survived... I wonder for how long they can keep the temptation of sin from tainting their hearts, but they should beware as I will stand at their door to declare judgement on that fateful day.


    The scarlet fires followed me, and a hand reached out.

 Chapter five: Change

    (Huh... no info dump at all, just another POV with characters that will go further with the story instead of being one-hit wonders. I hope you enjoy this chapter and can overlook all the mistakes I made since I finished this when I was extremely tired.... Anyway, enjoy! :D )


    (Right, I baited more readers with the infamous ''Harem'' and ''Romance'' tags, sorry but I do everything for ''dem views.)


    My old bones rattled, my limbs ached and my vision was dim.


    *Cough Cough!*, I spat out a mouthful of blood as a painful coughing fit assaulted my poor lungs. The ash and heat in the air turned breathing unbearable, the soot waited for the moment to enter one''s lungs and slowly make you wither away.


    Each breath pained me, my eyes watered and even blinking became painful as more of the ash entered my eyes. My hands ached in a similiar fashion, my skin was reddened and a few pieces of hard and splintered wood pierced into my palm. Heat and pain surrounded me, the sky was blotched by black smoke obelisks, piercing straight into the moon and beyond.


    For a moment I believed to catch sight of our beautiful moon and the breathtaking dots that we call stars, so far away but so close to my eyes. I... I too had family. I am old, I know, but I still had family. A single son, father of three kids, one boy and two little girls, and a wonderful wife. How I loved my grandchildren, Lily, Lea and Sven. Whenever they played, be it around the church or with those other little monkeys, smiles and warm laughter filled the air. It was the joy of youthful innocence. And yet, not even one turned ten, not one lived to see the next day. All I could do was guide the few survivors, I had no weapons, I had no strength, I was but an old man. A coward.


    My son, dead, what else? His wife, dead. Their children, my grandchildren, dead. And I? The oldest of the pack. Nothing more than an old and half-senile crock that had luck, mere luck! I, yes I am still alive, the one doomed to death in naught but a few years is alive, alive and well. It is just... it makes no sense.


    I lived a life in austerity, prayed to our goddess of the skies, Sylvana, and yet... and yet everything was taken from me. The worst is, I can''t cry. I lived through so much already, I have seen death brush past my shoulders; I am good friends with him. I lived through TOO many things, I am lost already, my heart in a too far away place. Why wasn''t it my time already?


    Relishing in pity I could barely hold my body straight. All the time I was on the verge of collapsing, wondering why I had survived. Obviously the answer stood right before me, with back turned from us, from all of us humans here. It barely looked at us, this demon of fire, it only slaughtered. Bah, slaughter was unfitting. This demon, from beyond legends, crushed existences with a mere flick. It was a beautiful sight to behold, a painful and gruesome sight.


    Ash, fire, no trace of blood or a fight, simple cataclysm. I had hardly noticed this deity lowering itself from the skies, from its rightful place, and onto this world. It mumbled in a foreign language -''The tongue of Gods.'',I believed-, but for the inept listener it came off as a primal growl, a menacing rumble deep in your chest cavity that made your hairs stand on end.


    And then... and then, then someone shot at it. At the corner of my vision, with my old and dry eyes I could see this particular man, drawing his bowstring, the same that killed many of his fellow kin. I knew it won''t work, he knew it, but for a reason that shall forever remain unknown he shot. The man in the demon''s graps was longst one with the fire, turned into a warning for all of us, and the man still shot.


    The arrow darted with the cover of ashes and night, I lost sight of this scraggy finger of death, and then a low hum etched itself into the silence. Before the arrow even had a chance it was disintegrated by the very aura of the demon. Its ashes taken by the wind into unknown places.


    I wondered as a grim wind passed my face, ''What happened?''. Torpid, by surprise maybe, the demon stood still, his body growing dim; the lave veins cooling. My breathing was loud and so was the fire. Suddenly the demon shuddered, his head writhed towards the man, slowly and dramatic. A grin with black teeth that will forever haunt my dreams. I feared, not for myself, not for the bandits, but for humanity as a whole. In that moment I feared for every breathing and living being, be they cruel or not, I feared for our future and our world.


    Then it came, and I could hear it, a silence thicker than anything I ever felt. It was obnoxiously loud, echoed in my mind and drilled into my ears, the silence was unbearable! My breathing failed me, my heart tripped over its beats, my limbs shivered by the chill; it was freezing, ice cold even. Believe it or not, those flames, surrounding black, demonic rock, were nothing but ordinary. They flared, lashed out through the wind and screamed like the banshees do. Those flames tasted the air and suddenly everything halted, stood still. The fires turned cold, cold enough that I felt my body grow numb.


    A second, no, after a fraction of a second, the devil dissappeared. He vanished, and I could only stare with bewilderment at the clout of burned earth where once stood a demon of flame, fire and destruction.


    I drew a large arc with my eyes, trailed towards the man but in his place I only saw a pillar of living and laughing fire, a shadow, a rough shade of a dancing and burning human swallowed into its crimson belly. The torched human crouched down screaming and his lines blurred into a heap of darkness in this red and blinding world. All around me, and us, the rest of the survivors, those same pillars of snapping and billowing red scorched the night.


    The heat crawled over my skin and made me so painfully remember those that I have lost in flames much like these. I tried to remember but the faces of my children were singed, nothing but ash and the cry of despair filled my thoughts. More of the bandits succumbed to the fire, more humans'' lives were claimed but I smiled, I grinned, haphazardly and the smile kept growing, cutting my face in half. I enjoyed it, seeing those monsters'' very essence of life slowly being consumed. I enjoyed it so much!


    "THAT''S WHAT YOU GET! THE GODS ANSWERED OUR PRAYERS!", I screamed and rocked my body into a trance, forwards and backwards and forwards and backwards, leaving my self behind with each wobble. I lost count of the flames that shoot for the stars, to ignite them and challenge their eternity. In those same demonic flames I saw nothing but delight, and they cackled with me in deep resonance. Tears welled from my sere eyes, from my ancient and dried up eyes. I cried with clenched throat and fingers that clawed at the ground, with bloody palms and frenzied mind, with coarse screams and dead spirit.


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    What remained of the bandits was nothing less than ash, blown away by wind, taking it away like they took our loved ones. Sobs and cries of sorrow drenched the air in gloom and poignant grief. All around, all I could see and witness were broken husks of what was once people I have known throughout the years. They all despaired as the flames settled, their wonderous light gone we were left in the dark. We were all downed, our souls pulled away with the dying flames, now shimmering embers that edged our homes.


    Perplexingly it was not one of us, the adults, the mature ones, but a little child, a little girl, that stepped forward. Her hair shone like small flamelets against the colossus of obsidian she was following behind.


    Shocked, terrified, I tried to wanr the little girl, warn her from this demon, despising life itself. But my mouth, my chapped lips, were to weak. My words fell from my lips onto the cold hard ground, nothing more than weak babbles left me. Kneeling on the ground I offered a silent prayer.


    ---------------


    Feeble, meek and trembling the small girl brought her bruised hands forward, her dirty dress crinkled with each step. ''Y-you can do it!'', she voiced out in her mind, her hands balling into fists. The ash and dirt gnashed under her crude leather shoes, like snow, but dark and hot -tribute to the fire-.


    With her small hands she gripped for empty air, sprinted through the assaulting heatwaves that surged from the creature in front of her. Something deep in her heart commanded her to thank this being, be it good or bad it helped her and those she knows or might not know in their direst time. Her mother always told her to be thankful, to be grateful for the helping hand that reaches out for you, and so she would follow her mother''s example.


    One week step after the other she set foot after foot forward, fear gripped tightly at her heart but the words of her mother, echoing through her ears, gave her the much needed strength to march foward. Soft and warm hands pushed her frail back.


    The juggernaut, this unstoppable incarnation of fire, troded forward, slow and majestic, each step making the earth quiver. But in all its glory, in all its divine and overbearing demeanor the girl still reached out, still stood straight, albeit with weak legs, still faced her fear, like none of the others did. They just simply stared at the sky, the ground, the fire, contemplating their cursed existence and the demise that had befallen them. Weaker than a little girl, they were weak. But understandably so. Having everything taken from you, from your long life, the love and affection you amassed like riches, all gone. Just. Like. That.


    Yet, whatever the girl tried, she couldn''t reach this being. Her wobbly steps could only take her that far, she keeled over and embraced the earth as exhaustion and fatigue took control. Now she was in a panic, the demon growing further apart from her with each step it took. Unhindered by the corpses, the fire, the ash, it simply strode forward, uncaring about what was insolent enough to stand in its way.


    "W-wait!", the girl cried with a muffled shout. But the demon wavered not, his pace did not slow down, he did not stop.


    "P-please wait! Please!", she tried again, her head lifted from the ground, with her freckled cheeks and her upturned and pleading eyes she watched closely as the being''s back left her sight.


    "I beg you! Wait, please.....", the girl broke down in a stream of tears and cries, whether she was only now lamenting her loss or she was truly, truly seeking the demon''s company, only she knows.


    "M-my name is Elena, in one week I will be ten. Mama has already invited uncle Livus and aunty Isabell. I am good friends with my cousins Marcus and Julia, they are my best friends.", the girl said with pride, rather whispered into the wind. "We like to go through the city and play pranks on the old lady Poina, she is really funny, always walking with her big cat. I love sweets, papa bought some when chief Da''an gave him a raise. They are really yummy and make me happy. I also love summer, the fresh wind and warm light, I really do love it... I really do...", she burried her face into her sleeves, cried pitifully into the earth, her worries and pain falling on deaf ears.


    "Yesterday I saw a big stag in the forest, it was really beautiful and I told everything about it to mama and papa. They were so proud... so proud of me.", with that final sentence the girl turned silent, her eyes casted on the dirt she laid on.


    "So pitiful, so endlessly miserable! No, such a tragedy! Please, my heart it will tear apart!", the girl collected her shattered spirit and gazed upwards. There stood the demon, his black claws folded over his chest. "NOT.", his obsidian claws ripped the stone beneath apart and revealed a hollow core, filled with fire and chaos.


    "That is why I hate humans, you cry, you scream but can''t help yourself. You who has lost everything, I will take whatever is left.", the demon muttered and reached out with his feral claws. He gripped the girl by her delicate wrists and pulled her upwards into the air. "Th-thank y-!", the girl tried to spit out with effort, but her words were cut short by a pain so intense that her words stuck in her throat.


    "You are human, that is what is left. Let''s change that! AHAHAHA!!!", the demon''s roar blended into a thundering laughter, mixed with the low screams the girl managed to squeeze out; a painless sleep never graced her through the whole process.

 Chapter six: Time burns away

    (Time skip, some other stuff, things that will or might happen in the future, more stuff. Maybe I will split the story into two parts, one storyline consisting of Elena and the other of Yr¨¦. Yr¨¦ is the name of the MC, combination of Ire, wrath, and the spanish pronounciation of the God Ra, the sun God in egyptian mythology. Tell me how you like it.


    It took some time to write this since I mostly need my inspiration from other fictions and the quality on this site seems to be really lacking at the moment.... I am sorry if I offended anyone with that. Anyway, here is the chapter you might or might not have waited for. Enjoy and tell me how you liked it! :D  P.S: sooo many mistakes, gotta fix them tommorrow :P )


    "P-P-please, please spare me, have mercy!", a despondent man whimpered while on his knees, his face pale and eyes underlined by a dark red. A few sudges of blood stained the man''s face as his teeth clattered in fear.


    "Yes! I beg of you, have mercy with us, we-we... It was not our fault. We were forced!", another man chimed in, with his knees scurrying forward on the burned black ground and his hands folded in an act of solicitation he looks with his grizzly face deep into two feral eyes.


    "I-it was him! He ordered us!". "Yes, it was him!". "It''s the commanders fault!". "We had no choice!", wanton excuses uttered with waspish tongues. The group of men pointed at a single slumped down man, his forehead a single collection of cold sweat. His hands laid softly in his laps, twitching desperately as he wrecked his mind for a solution, a salvation out of this mess. But the figure that loomed over the kneeling group of bandits wanted none of that. More bandits, more scum to purge.


    "Silence!", a diabolic and yet distinctively feminine voice hissed back. It was a beautiful voice, apart from the scorching bloodlust that was laced inbetween and the absolute apathy underlain. Hearing this single word caused the cooped up men to tremble in fear, shake uncontrollably as their bowels emptied and their complexion paled. With wide eyes they gulped and directed their gaze towards the heaven, most whispered inaudible prayers for only their Gods to listen to while others cried with quivering lips, lamenting the sins they have committed.


    All around them were corpses strewn onto the blood soaked soil, flesh and skin torn off, young womans'' bodies contorted into obscene positions; repugnant liquids of all kinds crusted the once pure earth in their filth.


    Thick clouds of blackness coiled hungrily around the penned up bandits, predatory even, wisps of hot ash reaching out to tear them apart, and inside this thick sea of darkness were two blazing crimson eyes.


    *Tap. Tap.*. Gentle steps resounded from the fog of darkness, the ferocious pair of eyes swaying from side to side with utmost tranquility.


    Piercing through the wall of moving and breathing nothingness was a lithe girl, with skin unblemished by the swirling ash and a regal demeanor she trodded with wide strides towards the cowering men. One would expect those group of savage and barbaric men to jump straight onto this defenseless girl, yet all they did was eye the mass of darkness behind her, how it morphed into the faces of their deceased comrades and began to haunt their vulnerable minds with bursted flesh and mutilated limbs.


    Long and lustrous hair cascaded down her shoulders, framing her beautiful face in a rivulet of magma and soft gold. Two wonderfully ruby eyes gazed deeply into the bandits'' souls, with vacuous profoundness. The wispy girl took another step forward, her untarnished face not flinching in the slightest as she breathed in the thick smell of death and sex that hung in the torrid air; a combination only the truly maddened could take pleasure in.


    Apart from her eyes, devoid of every emotion save hate, her expression remained tranquil. Her thin, fine arm extended and with a delicate finger she pointed at one man at random. "Guilty.", she spoke with taciturn lips, the words descending from the whole world around them -this prison of ash and death was their only world for now and all eternity-.


    Black lightning struck down on the man, tendrils of smoke crawled from their ashen grave and hunted on the living. Studded with horrifying spines and endless maws those black arms forked out, moved with sluggish movements forward, pecked cautiously at the man that was suspended in mid-air with their infected fangs and claws.


    At first they tugged, then they pulled, afterwards they dipped into his red and soft flesh, then churned his intestines with vigor as they enjoyed their toy, burst his ribcage apart with delight, bulged forth from his eyes like petite buds, tore his muffled screams of despair into hellish shrieks of agony.


    A beautiful red mist floated where the man once stood, pieces of his flesh scattered about like the leaves of an old oak, dead and devoid of life.


    "Y-you fucking bitch!", a bandit yelled, brandished a short dagger that was hidden between his linen waistband and pale flesh and lunged forward like a crazed beast, which he was nothing less at the moment.


    The crude iron shone dimmly under the sparse light of the sun, the moon? Who knows, time in this vortex of ash does not matter to the living anymore.


    A silver trail was left in the air, the bandit shot forward, his steps hurrying over the uneven ground and not so rare corpses. With an elated smile -he was already in arm''s reach to the girl, she was frightened for sure; what a fool.- he pressed the dagger through the air heavy with death and smoke. His eyesight was blurry but his proficiency with the dagger would allow him to hit a target even when blindfolded. Painfully slow the dagger limped like a cripple forward, a second stretched into an hour.


    The girl licked her smooth and scarlet lips with a velvety tongue and made a quiet click. Unhurried she lifted one sleek arm and pointed with her thin index finger at the man that was rushing towards her. She sighed, ennui was prevalent in her tone, how often have those mortals thought they could kill her?! Have SOUGHT to kill her? She loved to massacre bandits, even more so if they were filthy men such as the ones infront of her, but it quickly got boring. ''What does master love so much about this?'', Elena thought but came to no answer.


    Her master was an enegmatic being, powerful beyond measure, so powerful that he recreated her whole self and molded her into something that only legends and myths spoke of. If she was already powerful beyond mortal and immortal limits then just how mighty must her master be?! Elena had no idea. But whatever her master was, he gave her strength, strength to live out her revenge and be of use. Unadulterated power was given to her, unimaginable power, by her master, by her God; and the one she wants to call lover, even if only in her own mind. ''When did it happen?'', she reminisced as a small wisp of fire sparked into existence at the tip of her finger, it was enough to wipe out a whole kingdom.


    7 years? No, 6 years and... and, I think, seven months, three weeks and... wait.... five days! That''s right. 6 years and a half passed by, roughly estimated.


    It was a wonderful time, a painful time and a time filled with the stench of death and carnage, she longst began to enjoy it as her master does.


    With a smile she remembered the ''first time'' she had with her master, how he held her above the ground with dark claws, clenched her tiny skull with an overlord''s might and gazed deeply into her soul. Black eyesockets filed with crimson light starred into her watery eyes. His mouth gaped open and outlandish flames invaded her, pierced straight through her very being. She felt herself being consumed by the inferno that trashed in her intestines, drawn into its crimson maw, she wanted to cry but her throat was literally on fire. She tasted her burned tongue, smelled her singed flesh and felt the pain of breathing. The process was painful and ended in a dark abyss, the only source of light being her master.


    He patted her head as she fell deeper into this chasm, tamed the flames and kept them from attacking her. Whenever he was there the pain would leave, her heart would ease. ( DAMN, I AM ON FIRE! XD ) He gave her peace, comfort and, most of all, company. In a world devoid of any feeling other than pain and the darkness there is nothing more pleasant than the warmth of another being standing right at your side. Yr¨¦, his name was like the most delicious sweet to her. It took some time but sooner or later she got addicted to his presence, to his almighty power and words, and although she adored his perfect side it was none other than his lack of knowledge that connected her with him. In the darkness she would often talk with him about the world, what she knows about, what she likes, dislikes and why. Yr¨¦''s lack of knowledge amused Elena, she thought of herself as a teacher and taught him the most common knowledge about this world. Strangely enough Yr¨¦ had some specks of knowledge, would sometimes even complement what she was teaching. Nonetheless, It still made her happy to be of use to Yr¨¦.


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    And this way she regaled over the darkness and pain, for she knew that Yr¨¦ would come and comfort her.


    Without her knowing years passed inside her now comfortable home of darkness, her private place only for her and Yr¨¦. She matured and at once, on a beautiful day as the sun began breaching the horizon, her world was turned upside down. Darkness was replaced by light, the fire red by sky blue. With blank eyes she watched trees in the distance that shuddered happily with the wind, seemingly waving at her and urging her to come closer. But she stepped back. Her master was nowhere to be seen! Where was he?! Was she alone?! Had he no use for her anymore?! Would the pain come once again, this deep and aching pain?! No, NO, NO!!! It can''t be!


    She shyed back from the big and unknown world and cowered onto the ground, the cold, hard and lonely ground. She wanted her master''s touch, she wanted it now! She needed it, she needed the comfort of his warm hands!


    "M-m-master, where are you?", she cried out with tears running down her face. She trembled all over as howls echoed in the distance, howls of humans. Humans?! Why were they here? She panicked even more than before, the hate for humans was intense and only further nurished by Yr¨¦''s twisted personallity.


    What would the humans do to her? Would she end up like her mother?! No, she did not want to die, she wanted to see her master, feel his touch. This is what she was born for!


    Trembling in terror she frantically searched for her master''s touch, scent and voice. Her hands grabbed for empty air, the illusion of the black obelisk that kept her protected from the stormy tides of the world, the cruelty of reality, floated around her. "Master! Master!", she cried louder and louder, grasped for the mirage with weak hands.


    "Ouch!", she keeled over, her face landing in the hard dirt. The dirt crunched under her clenching fists. "No...", she whailed and punched the unresponding soil. The ground shattered and rives spread like a spider''s web beneath her. "I don''t want this....", despair took a hold of her heart that only knew her master and the sparse memories of a mortal''s life, a life she once led.


    Pitiful, she looked utterly pitiful. Her whole body trembled all over, like a small rodent that gazed into its predators eyes she was rooted on the ground, her heart and mind empty.


    "Relax.... It''s all good.", at long last she felt a touch, heard a voice, and it was no other than her beloved master. Patting her head the black and crimson deva of carnage stood above her. What could only be called a grimace meant to shatter your enemies spirit, which was actually a small smile, sported Yr¨¦''s face.


    "Master!", she shouted and jumped into his open arms. Her tear-strikken face burried into his steel hard yet comfortable bossom.


    "It''s all good. Everything will be fine.", Yr¨¦ reassured her whilst continuing to pat her head with his flesh rending claws.


    "Elena... Do master a favor. Kill those humans for me, will ya?", he whispered moist and hot into her ears. The girl nodded furiously, her face flushed red. "Of course!", she yelped.


    "Good girl.", Yr¨¦ gave her a deep kiss, his boiling tongue wrapping around hers and his hands tightening around her frail body. The stunned girl pressed her waist against his, enjoyed the hot and painful sensation of her master''s tongue, but waited for much more.


    Yr¨¦ squeezed tight onto Elena''s buttocks. "Bad girl...", he whispered and pushed her away. "Now do like I told you to.", his stern demeanor returned.


    "Of course.", Elena nodded and turned back,  wide smile on her face. Fear of humans? Pah! With her master around what could she have to fear?!


    ++++ (Same ''scene'' but from another view)


    Yr¨¦ smiled ''warmly'' and his gaze followed the lively girl he took under his wing. "Disgusting.", he mumbled and spit out. "Those humans are so simple minded. Tsk!".


    -------- (Back to the beginning)


    The man flailed about, his hands trying to grip at the fire that ate him from the inside, spread like a deadly virus through his body and soul. The bandit cried, howled, screamed for redemption, his eyes darting towards his fellow bandits and the demonic woman that was fidgeting with reddened cheeks.


    "Master will praise me again!", Elena mumbled to herself. She clsped her cheeks and focused back onto her task. "First, I have to take the trash out!".


    The branches of black thunder swarmed around the kneeling bandits, with dark fangs and seething claws they ripped their prey apart with the utmost care.


    It rained red inside a cloud of ash, a truly bizarre phenomenon that took place all around the human kingdoms. (Placing some hints about the world. ''Human'' kingdoms, huh, huh?)


    Elena stretched her lithe body with delicate moans. The ground squelched with a wet noise as Elena lolled her long legs, the stench of blood flooded into her nostrils. Right now she stood atop a mountain of shredded corpses, crimson rivers flowed through the burned village that served as her background. Not one soul was alive all around her, she turned into an omen of carnage, just like her master wished for.


    "Well done.", a deep voice rumbled from the shadows.


    "It was nothing, master.", Elena responded with a blush. She held her head low to keep Yr¨¦ from seeing her bashful expression.


    "Come here.", Yr¨¦ urged her closer and she did as he commanded.


    He gripped her forcefully by the neck and kissed her. "Your reward.", he whispered with his charred lips and long tongue.


    *!!!*, Elena exclaimed but did not try to resist her overbearing master, she enjoyed every moment with him, be it painful or joyful. The very existence of her master was pure bliss already.


    She let her tongue wrestle with his, nudged her body closer and closer until their shapes blurred. She was wet, sweaty and breathing heavily, in other words, she was ready for her master; since long the stench of death couldn''t quell her lust for her wonderful master.


    She whimmered in his embrace, awaited another reward for her deeds. "I am sorry my dear Elena.", Yr¨¦ kissed her softly on her silky rose lips. "I need to go for some time.", he caressed with his clawed thumb her soft cheeks and turned around.


    "When will you come back?", Elena asked anxiously.


    "It won''t take long.", Yr¨¦ smiled reassuringly. For most it would look like a demonic mask warped in wrath and lust for carnage but Elena knew clearly what each and every expression of her master truly meant.


    She smiled meekly, her head lowered and she stared at the burned ground, her feet shuffeled over the soil, clearly she was sulking.


    "Hahahaha... Don''t worry Elena, I will be back sooner than you expect. A day, a week, a month at most?!", Yr¨¦ laughed heartily, his hand patted Elena''s crimson hair. "The capital should be close, how about you spent your time as an adventurer? When I come back you can tell me about all your achievements and people you encountered.", his vocie turned serious. "But remember.", he held her face between his hands. "Good humans judge over bad humans in their own ways, don''t try to kill anyone senselessy, except when they dare to touch you, or make any advances.", he gripped her butt tightly. Elena averted her gaze and surpressed the squeal of excitement that was about to burst forth.


    Yr¨¦ gave her one last kiss before he dissapeared with the waving of the wind.


    Elena licked the last residue taste of her master from her lips, with longing eyes she watched the ash being taken away by the calming gales. "I will miss you master.", she clasped her hands over her chest.


    ++++


    "So annoying those pesky humans, going in heat like beasts!", Yr¨¦ hissed as his body silted into fire and smoke. "Let''s see what this world has to offer.", he whispered and merged with the night a dangerous glint awoke in his already catclysmic eyes.

 Chapter seven: Alliance

    (Heyho, new chapter! Please take part in the poll, as this chapter mainly points out in which direction I will be going with Yr¨¦''s story arc. While Elena will go on adventures with the guild and we will see many fights with monsters, that means fast pace, Yr¨¦ will strategically destroy humans and even other races if he sees fit. After all who am I kidding in making you believe that Yr¨¦, a godly being, would take part in some war that could only be leisure banter in his eyes?


    Another thing I am quite interested in: What is your perfect atmosphere to relax? Just asking, you can write it down in the comments below even if it is long or something, I am just a bit curious.


    For me it is like that: a hot coffe, a quarter of which is milk. Cheap flatbread, that is called Flachkn?cker here in Germany, with a thin layer of fruity jam. While eating and drinking, the sun has to shine a bit into my eyes, not to much that it turns uncomfortable but enough to turn the whole room well-lit and spread a nice warmth over my body. For the finishing touch a open window that lets in a strong wind and the monotonous noise of cars on the street, children playing or birds chirping, anything really as long as it remains constant and somewhat tranquil. I don''t know why I like this atmosphere or why I wanna know how you guys feel perfectly in touch with the world but I am just a curious person it seems. :P Anyway I hope you enjoy the chapter. :D Still need to proofread :(  I hope the poll works XD)


    Roaring torches spiked with green flamelets littered an elsewise dark corridor leading downwards with a steep descent. The cobblestone that made up the walls and poorly maintained floor was chipped and cracked, water was steadily running through small gaps and the earth above pressed steadily onto the fragile hallway. In a word, it was ancient.


    The corridor led deeper into this world''s core, only the small green dots indicating a change in the overall direction, small turns left and right that were caused by the naturally moving and convulsing earth. Time passed but the corridor kept snaking forward, endlessly, and long after on had already given up hope on reaching the cursed end of this endless hallway a door came in sight.


    On closer observation the door was seemingly stuck in a perpetual feud between its own durability and the moist, greenish-white mold that was growing atop it and consuming it slowly. Yet, the door was hell-bent on enduring this fight for the years to come, although the outcome was painfully obvious!


    Perking one''s ears you could hear muffled voices from behind the old door, voices ranging between all ages yet containing immense power and wisdom in each word. Let''s take a closer look within, shall we?


    Behind the rotting door was a spacious room lined with the same emerald green torches as the outside, their small flames scraping at the wet stone with ferocious ardor, leaving black marks on the dark grey walls.


    Much like knights guard their master these torches circled around a large, round table furnished with white cloth, silver cutlery and golden candlesticks, all in a dignified and noble manner; not to lavish and not to simple.


    Beside the low voices we could hear the sound of meat being cut, slices of bread being handed around, some laughter even and the crispness of fresh vegetables. Ignoring the suspicious location, the cloaks and the power emanating from the figures one could come to believe this was some kind of joyous occasion of a merchant''s family to say the least, celebrated with a sumptous meal and a homey atmosphere.


    Amongst the figures was one that stood out exceptionally. A tall shade sat at the table head, dark violet hands reaching out of its equally dark robe for knife and fork to cut the medium rare steak with untypical tenderness in each move. The figure pulled a silver strand of hair behind the robe''s hood, brought the mouthsized piece of flesh into the darkness that covered this person''s face and swallowed it with gusto. The figure let the taste settle in before uncorking a green bottle and pouring itself a glass of crimson wine. Rotating the blood-red liquid inside the glass with slow movements the robed individual tipped the glass against its purple lips and sipped at the liquid with delight.


    "Mhm.... truly delicious.", the figure mused with a deep vocie that was despite its menacing tone still pleasant to hear. As the man spoke all other noise died out, be it the chatter or the mumbles of his ''companions''.


    An angelic giggle was thrown into the round by another individual, unmistakable female in its appearance.


    "Lord Aires Nif''Arath, you seem to enjoy our draconic wine, don''t you?", the figure opposing Lord Aires spoke. Although the robe tried its best to hide the figure beneath with thick layers of leather it just proved impossible to hide a body as curvaceous as this one. The robe was already hard pressed by trying to contain the massive bust that was about to burst forth from the clothing, apparent at the taut fabric around the chest area, an each small tremble, whisper or stretch strained the robe ever so slightly more.


    "Hum...- Lady Solias, I am truly fascinated by this wine. I simply can''t wrap my mind around how such a product can be procured. The process to distill the liquid of whatever this comes from must prove to be quite difficult, right?", the lord answered with a small smile beneath his hood, his dark red green eyes shinning with inquistiveness.


    "I am glad you enjoy it, and it certainly takes some time to create such a wonderful wine. But...", she held a finger to her covered lips that most men would kill for. "How this is made will remain a secret.", she winked though no one could see it.


    The lord''s smile grew wider as he took another sip of red bliss.


    "Pah! This sweet, sweet.... whatever that is?!- is disgusting, I couldn''t get down one glass.", the most brawny and stubby figure out of all of them gathered shouted and slammed a thick, green fist on the table. "Beer, that''s the stuff! I would sell my wives to the dwarves for one barrel each!", the man slammed his fist against the table for another time.


    "FATHER!", a figure beside the small and stout man rebuked. "I will them, brother and sister included!", the audibly feminine figure threatened and crossed her arms over her yet to develop bossom and turned away. Despodent the man looked at his daughter with disbelief in his eyes. "A-annia, you wouldn''t do that, would you? You know that papa was only joking, right dear?! Hahahaha... come on guys, laugh with me. Hahahahahaha.....", with a flat laugh the small man looked at the people seated around the table, all of them avoided his gaze.


    "Serves you right, you little, dirty goblin!", a tall and slim figure hissed.


    "Uhh, that was uncalled for.", Lord Aires whispered in awkwardness but his eyes were glued on the coming dispute.


    "Y-you shitty elven bastard!", the goblin shouted at the tall man that hid a flawless face behind his hood.


    "What?! You little maggot! King of Goblins or whatnot, I will slice you apart if you say another word!", the elven man shouted.


    "Hahahahaha! High elf bastards like you truly don''t know shit about anything outside their oh so wodnerful forests. I will take a dump on you corpse once I am finished with you.", the King of Goblins spat out with saliva flying over the table.


    Suddenly the elf became quiet, looking absent-minded at his plate. "I would love to see you try.", he whispered before energy crazily swirled around him in a vortex of green and white. Winds with no origin trashed around inside the spacious room, the earth croaked and the wood of the table bent.


    "That''s how you wanna play?! HA! Let''s get this on!", the Goblin King shouted and pulled out a large iron mallet from empty space.


    "Stop! Both of you!", Annia, the eldest daughter of the Goblin King Mekaling, shouted and raised her hands upwards. All around her the space deformed, fires popped into existence only to be erased again, water droplets formed that evaporated without heat, earth crumbled to dust and wind halted in its tracks, lightning crackled with thunderous echo only to be silenced by nothingness; time and space was thrown into utter chaos.


    "Truly the element of oblivion, Gungnir.", the High Elf prince Niam Alasziel whispered and gulped down. The vortex of green and white behind him dissapeared and he took his seat again with nervously tapping feet.


    Drained from her power Annia sat down, rather, slumped back into her padded seat. Sweat beaded on her thin brows, each laboured breath letting one drop trickle down. A warm hand gripped her shoulder. "Is my little Ani alright?", Goblin King Mekaling asked with worry in his voice, the giant mallet was already back to wherever it came from. "Y-yes father, just don''t act like a child all the time.", Annia said with a gentle smile. "I am sorry, I might be your father but I am still an idiot....", Mekaling sighed and took his seat as well.


    "I-I am sorry prince Niam. It was not my intention to insult you.", although Mekaling had a higher position than Niam and did not need to apologize towards the person that started this fight he knew it was the right thing to do and as somebody that governed over millions of lives he knew that even the mighty had to bow down once in a while.


    "Haaa.... No, it was my fault, I don''t know what came over me.", Niam relaxed his tensed body. "I also apologize to everyone here, especially princess Annia.", he said while bowing his head. The person in question gently shock her head full of brown hair. "Don''t sweat it.", Annia said softly.


    The whole entourage breathed a sigh of relief before breaking out into small chuckles and then into full-on laughter. "That''s how we know both of you! As lively as ever.", a voice beyond ancient cawed.


    "Well said Lord Iren, well said.", Aires spoke and tipped his glass in the direction of a hunched figure. From the scrawny fingers and knobbly swellings one couldn''t fathom just how old this person truly was; hundreds, thousands, maybe even ten-thousands of years old!


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    The old man smiled warmly and resumed his meal consisting of a simple yet truly delicious mash of vegetables with a glass of white wine.


    "The beast clan elder is so understanding, why can''t you both be like that once in a while?!", Lady Solias asked the two squabblers. Both looked down guilty, it had been that way between the Goblins and Elves for a very long time, both races trying to exterminate the other as both inhabited mainly forests. The forefather of Mekaling though changed that and with the whole Goblin race they settled around mountain foots and large caverns where they could mine, invent like the dwarves do and increase their population without pressuring the elves habitat. Some might see Mekaling''s ancestor as weakling but in the end he was just a smart being with enough intelligence to avoid unnecessary fights, a gentle person as well to say the least. The relationship between both races was and is still tensed but they are taking on a mutual understanding of each other, striving for a better future. (Oh yeah...No, no, no, no! No Goblin X Elf rape included, just simple extermination, let''s not put all Goblins in the same box!)


    "Let''s forget what happened her, alright?", Aires cut the discussion short or whatever might sprout anew from it. "There are more important matters to attend to.", Aires said and the atmosphere turned grim in a second.


    "With me as the proxy of the demon race, Lord Iren of the Beast race, Lady Solias of the Dragon clan, Mekaling of the Goblin, Orcs and Ogre race and Niem as the representative for the Elven lands we are only short of Arianne of the Giant tribe, Isleria of the Ocean kin, Burim of the Dwarves, Gnomes and Kobolds and Nina of the Angel race. It might seem rude but this meeting is urgent and we can''t wait for those four anymore. I speak in the interest of all of us if I say, the humans are forcing us onto the brink of extinction and an alliance will be the only way out of this predicament.", Aires let the words set in the air drenched in silence.


    "I agree.", Mekaling was the first to answer, followed by the other representatives, all resolute in their words.


    "Of the ten big races we nine shall now be unified under one banner. But, in all honesty, I don''t think that''s enough.", Aires concluded.


    Solias bit on her long, red fingernails in frustration. "Those pesky humans....", she grumbled with a wrath laced tone, the air around her turned incredibly hot before she snapped out of it and regained her calm.


    "Their adaptability is truly amazing, their strength is their ingenuity which we lacked, thinking we were better than them. And this is the result.", the old man Iren sighed. "Now we see our folk being enslaved by those we lampooned as weak, oh the irony...", his old voice cracked with a tinge of sadness. "Had we treated them better....". All six, Annia included, nodded in agreement.


    "I suggest we hid in one of the dwarves many caverns, the deep sea or even the continents on the sky, strengthen our nations and then attakc all at once. I don''t care what they did to us, if I see someone overstep his boundaries to turn this war into a war of extermination they will be killed by me personally, is that clear? I want to settle the grudges with the humans, true, but if we take it to far there is bound to be a bad ending in sight.", Aires warned, he let his powerful magic coil around his body in a display of strength that eclipsed all of those present.


    "The humans are quick-witted, they will notice something is changing and will be dead-set to destroy us before we can even take one step. What we need to do is taking a preemptive strike at the human empire with whatever is expandable and weaken their army, giving us enough time to escape while they try to recollect their forces. There are bound to be many casualities on our side, many will die, but this is the only way to give us enough time to flee. As the leader of this alliance I volunteer to stay back. As the most powerful of all of us I can stall them for some time while you try to collect as much of your people as need be. In comparison to all of you combined I am nothing but a weakling, so this is a price I am willing to take, I will pay with my lfie to give you enough time.", Aires'' stern voice echoed through the spacious room and left all present speechless.


    "You can''t be serious!", Solias shouted, followed by an angry Mekaling. "Who do you think you are?! Commanding yourself to deth without our consent! Fool, don''t think we are that much weaker than you!", Mekaling shouted and pulled in a fit of rage the hood from his head. "Eh, oops.", his green and brusque face was contorted in surprise, his grizzly beard swaying from side to side. "Uhm..."


    Aires sighed and took his hood of as well. "Ahhh..... You know, the humans might have ears and eyes everywhere, as the hidden kings of our folk we should not show our face to one another, but we might as well trust each other."


    The darkness subsided to reveal a beautiful face that was nigh androgynous if not for the chiseled chin and the deep voice, Aires violet skin shone brilliantly in the light of the smaragd torches.


    "Hahahahaha. Guess so.", the old Iren laughed heartily and pulled of his hood as well. He looked oddly enough like any other elderly person. He was mainly bald except for the few scraps of hair that desperately hung onto his scalp and did not wish to merge with his ever-growing, white beard. The only thing that stood out were two black mandibles sticking from his cheeks.


    "I didn''t know the insectoids among the beast race could live for so long.", Aires asked curoisly with his handsome face tilted to the side. "Hohohoho.... Most don''t, I am a bit of a mystery myself.", Iren cluckered with a wrinkled smirk while his mandibles clacked against each other.


    Niam took his hood of as well to reveal a man with otherwordly beauty, much higher than Aires. What stood out the most though, apart from his alabasta skin and smooth pink lips even men would fall for, were his two pitchblack eyes. He had no vivible iris, it was all just blackness.


    The people at the table gasped. "He... Long story, but not as dramatic as you might think. Just, I''d love to say cursed but alas that''s not it.", Niam mumbled, a tear rolled down his cheek. In seconds his dowtroden expression changed back towards haughty and mildly arrogant and the people that the table eased up.


    "I''d love to hear your story someday.", Aires said comfortingly. Niem nodded, a bit taken aback but mostly by the warmth of those people he barely knew except from a few letters and words transmitted through magical devices.


    Solias followed Niem''s example and took her hood of as well. No need to explain, but she was a staggering beauty. With long red hair flowing down her back all the way to her ankles and crimson scales underlining her most beautiful parts she simply looked mesmerizing. Her fine velvet lips made one salivate, her fierce red eyes urged one to conquer them, so that one could enjoy them forever and her scent turned ones mind upside down, be it male or female, no exception.


    Everyone except Niem paused for a bit, enjoyed the presence of such a divine beauty before regaining their senses. Aires sniffed the air and raised an eyebrow at Solias. "Succubus?", he aksed curiously. "My mother was one, my father was a dragon.", the woman smiled happily.


    "That explains some things.", Aires mumbled.


    "With that out of the way. Let''s make our alliance official!", Aires changed the topic, took out a worn scroll and hold it high up in the air. He pricked his finger and smudged the pergament with his dark blue blood. He then handed the scroll around.


    "I am sure Arianne, Isleria, Burim and Nina will agree upon our descision, if not, I will be the one that bears the consequences.", Aires took the scroll, now covered in five marks of different coloured blood, back and let it disappear beneath his robe.


    "One moment.", a raspy voice sounded from a seat that was believed to be empty.


    "What?", Aires asked out loud but more to himself.


    The torches flickered for a second, the ground rumbled and life stopped to thrive. A gust of hot air billowed through the room, summoned the souls of the damned in a maelstrom of fire and chaos.


    "I would love to enter your little alliance. I love humans you know... yeah... HumaNs... How fUn!", the voice echoed from all around.

 Chapter eight: Might

    (This here is a longer chapter... really long if you ask me XD. I can already guess which way you wanna see this story go and I gotta agree with a commenter. I will focus around Yr¨¦ and implement Elena''s journey as sidestory. Of course those two story lines will come together at one point in time and then they will travel together. Oh yeah... ehm... this chapter depicts brutality against a beautiful draconic woman and other people, so be warned! I don''t think its to brutal but whatever. Anyway I hope you can enjoy this and don''t hate me for whatever reason. Ok? Ok, nice. Enjoy! :D )


    BRUTALITY AHEAD, BE WARNED! Not brutal for my tastes, but... yeah.


    I pride myself in strength, not any mortal strength but the strength of the ancient dragon kin and the gatekeepers of the nether. I was a creature born from the most powerful of the many bloodlines, Hyperion, the ruling dragons, the heavenly dragons, and Astaroth, the mistresses of father death and chaos itself. Pride was carved into my bones, etched into my soul from a very young age. I was indoctrinated that all I did, all I am, was and will ever be is superior to my lesser kinsmen in every way. I might have been the product of undying love between two parents, but as they got a glimpse of my potential, of the intertwining bloodlines that mixed in harmony and power, all started to change. The once pure blooded dragons mixed and mingled with the demons, I served as an example to what could be created. A powerful being seen only once every millenia.


    I loved the feeling of strength, the feeling of superiority, how our clan stomped everything right under its foot. We crushed empires, rebuild them and crushed them again for the fun of it. With childish ease I beheaded monsters that dwelled in the deepest pits, the fieriest of hells, the darkest of oceans, and all in a fell swoop.


    We were drunk on power.


    Tyrannical our races, mostly mixed and creating abstract hybrids with powers never seen before, ruled over this world, this poor world. Other races took after our example, all except for one. The humans. It would be untrue to say they did not thirst for power as we did, it was simply the fact that they were weak. They had no innate strength, no endurance or durability. They were much like twigs, meant to be broken between two fingers. Alas we overlooked two important things. First, their potential. To this date we do not know which God bestowed them with this miraculous might but a human, if he willed it, could call forth upon power that none of us could reach. In their most desperate times they created... miracles. Their absurd strength gave them a foothold as they realized what they were onto, they inbred their powers and created powerful families and clans, more powerful than ours. The Prim, the prime, the supreme, the FIRST! This is how they called themselves while laughing at our faces.


    More of those powerful families emerged and began to grow into real threats. But it was far from over. Second, their numbers and ability to change. We might have decimated them but humans were far more adaptive than we had ever thought before. We brought them to the brink of destruction, many times, but they always came back, more powerful than ever before. Maybe we were on the right track with our pure bloodlines, those that the humans cultivated, but our greed for instantaneous power made us blind.


    Yes, humans were infact powerful beings, but, in face of any of us, us, the cusp of our race, even the most powerful of humans were struggling to fight against. Their numbers would certainly make up for that, but right now we could still fight back, a risk they won''t take. What else played in our favor was the little detail called age. Humans were strong but short-lived, much like a roaring fire they extinguished before you knew it. But this fire could cause enough damage in the short time it existed...


    In the end, even to this day, I see myself as superior. I, Solias Astarion, pride myself in strength not even humans with the godly power to create miracles can come close by. Yet... yet I felt frightened, felt TERRORIZED, by this melodic voice, this dark whisper hidden behind flowing and soft prose. My hairs stood on end, a cold chill seeped into my body heated by infernal fire, and while I kept myself from vomiting the dinner out I took part in only seconds ago I searched with frantic eyes for the source of this booming voice that left me breathless.


    Needless to say I found nothing. I looked at my companions, people I might be able to call friends one day, and saw their expressions warp in the same distraught surprise as mine did. I, a being of divine strength, should not feel fazed by a bone-chilling voice such as this one, but the tremble of my lips, the sniffles that I tried to surpress and the tears that threatened to fall, all told me that I was truly frightened, scared witless by whatever was lurking around us. It made me remember days of a long gone past.


    Since being a child I loved to fight, to impose my power onto others. ''Be the perfect predator. Be inside the mind of your next prey. Plan, move cautiously and strike when they are the weakest.'', excecute, improve, repeat. Regularly I took of into the untamed wilds, to get the kick of a bloody battle with my life on the line, certainly unbeffiting for a princess like me, in human standards at least.


    Most times I thought of it as some kind of twisted game, I was the cat and everything else the mice. I would hunt down my victim, exhaust them and then when they despaired, their spirits laid broken, I would consume them. Of course this only held true for beings which were definitive weaker than I was at that time. But it was on one day that I witnessed true power, power that was without bound and dwarfed everything I had seen before.


    I remember vividly how I swooshed with my true form over the deciduous treetops, casted a grim shadow atop the blanket of everlasting green as wide as your eyes could see. Defiant a few small mountain ranges pierced with their peak trough the green sea below right into the white sea of clouds above. It was a beautiful day to hunt, even in the deepest vestiges of this natural sanctuary light was present in abundance.


    With bared fangs and powerful gusts of wind I announced my arrival. The ground rumbled as my claws stomped onto the moss covered soil, prompting a muffled scream of the carving earth.


    My tail swipped once and dozens of trees twice as tall as me fell simultaneously, the blade of wind that propelled forward ended in the same instant tens of lives. I breathed the cool air with a jagged smirk, the smell of fresh spilled blood, its coppery fragrance, lighted my mood until a laugh threatened to errupt from my fiery maw.


    I gazed through the glade I created with one single swipe. Blood and gore edged the dark green and brown branches with crimson fringes. Crushed or cut, none of that matter since all those creatures died in a single second, they were not even worthy to be gazed upon.


    My callous eyes that held nothing but contempt for the weak and a craze for bloodshed wandered through the meandering paths that offered themselves up to me. Old oaks created winding tunnels with gnarly roots, diving in and out of the moist earth. I took one that led towards the mountain range and with swift steps I glided over the uneven terrain in seconds. My hulking body was as agile as a swallow, as fast as a hawk and as strong as the king of the skies himself. Confident I flew through the thick greenery, I flew and flew until another glade openned up. A small bubble of ashen and dead and trampled ground came into my view, a truly surreal sight in this sea of green that swamped away any imperfection with its smaragd tides. The ground was seared, turned arid from countless of stampedes and raging fires. The smell of blood was still lingering, hardly hidden by the ash, but no traces of blood were in sight.


    Carefully I gazed at the scene of destruction, anticipation and rapacity flickered unceasingly in my eyes. My sight betrayed my expectations as I finally spotted the perpetrator of this carnage lying lazily on the ground, snoring with a bloated stomach and a blood smeared snout.


    It was surprisingly a dragon, as ashen as the ground it laid on. A well-known taboo flashed past my mind. I would get stronger if I devour one of my own kind, wouldn''t I?


    Hastily I stepped back. What was I thinking?!


    We dragons had to stick together, hybrid or not we were still part of the same family. But my avidity for power forced my hands, my claws, forward.


    Frightened of my own selfish desires I pulled back, the ground loudly crunching beneath my taloned feet.


    "Mhmmmmhmm...", the grey dragon grumbled and openned his argent eyes blazoned with golden spines. His body uncoiled and for the first time I saw something bigger than myself and my parents. Forever the dragon seemed to stretch out, blotched the sky out with his ash-grey presence and gazed deeply into my crimson eyes. How could I not have noticed his gargantuan size?!


    "Young one....", the words from his mouth thundered like lightning from black clouds, it was deafening and instinctively I shrunk back. "You woke me up...mhmmm...", waves of sound came crashing down from its deep grunt.


    My words stuck right inside my throat but with a last-ditch effort I could swallow back my fear and stuttered out raspy words. "W-what a-a-are you?", I questioned meekly.


    The giant paid my question no heed and craned his neck over the forest green crowns, his endless eyes wandering over the woodland and the dark mountains. "So much claimed from my land, only this is left huh....", he growled and gazed at the grey patch of earth he laid atop. "How long was I asleep, little one?"


    My pride and courage vanished as those profound eyes locked with mine but not with their prior placidity but endless aloofness.


    "I-I-I-.", I couldn''t breath, my mind was short of air and my consciousness wavered. I would die from terror, that was certain. My heart palpitated and stopped at once.


    "Guess I, Baal Zebul, King of Dragons, have to find out myself.", with half closed eyes I saw the divine unfold his silver feathered wings and take of into the skies, for minutes. First his giant head that could swallow stars, then the six pairs of wings that darkened the sky and then the golden pronged tail made by the sun took off from the ground that was unworthy of a being of this magnitude. His titanic body vanished between the sea of green and blue, left behind a silver lining forever to be marked as the ''horizon''.


    Hours passed and I still stood there, my trembling finally settling down but the seed of awe and terror was already placed inside my young heart. This was the power I wanted to achieve, the power I feared at the same time. Needless to say I never saw that dragon again.


    I saw all this, felt all this in the past and promised to never end up like this again. I grew, honed my strength endlessly, spilled sweat, tears and blood in a search for ultimate strength. I consumed, evolved and harnessed power even from the dead. Compared to the past my strength should be unsurmountable, I should stand at the peak only with a handful of other creatures. I was not conceited enough to believe myself stronger than Baal Zebul, but with another few millenia I should be able to reach him. But now.... right now, after all I have done, all I have achieved by immolating my life for an endless pursuit of power... Impossible! IMPOSSIBLE!


    My hands, my whole body, my breathing. I trembled for the second time in my life, and it was worse than before. It was a tremble of terror, a fear for my own life, a black scythe that cut deep into my neck. What I wanted at this moment was to scream, scream for help, scream for my family, a person to hold my hand and protect me. I wished for all this to only be a nightmare, that the terror would leave my heart at once. Because... because... SUCH POWER COULD NOT EXIST!


    It was Impossible! Impossible I say! Impossible! Impossible! Impossible! Impossible! Impossible! Impossible! Impossible! IMPOSSIBLE!


    "My darling, don''t be afraid.", the darkness whispered and my soul crumbled apart, a gust of hot wind kissed my cheek and left me horrified and rooted on my seat.


    "I apologize for this unslightly entrance of mine.", the bodiless voice whispered with dark winds and this time all present heard it as well.


    "I should introduce myself, now shouldn''t I? Hahaha...", chuckles that contested earthquakes in their force errupted from the void. "My name is Yr¨¦, a simple judicator.", the frigid chill I felt on my skin was abruptely replaced by a boiling heat seeping into my marrow. The torches lit up in pillars of smaragd inferno and painted a ruler of death on the ceiling with fiery tufts. "Lord of Cinder! Arbiter of Carnage! Kindred of Fire .......It''s up to you, how you call me.......", the voice roared before it converged with darkness once again, and a thick drap of silence began to suffocate our hearts.


    This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    "Who are you, what are you! Show yourself!", Aires, the true ruler of demons, spoke up, asked, with stern voice but the tremble was undoubtably there, hidden behind a facade of determination. (Bad idea....)


    I saw the sweat trickling down Aires'' purple skin as his magic ran amok around his body in an attempt to shield him from whatever could happen. Mekaling on my left had his legendary mallet ''Stahl'' gripped tightly in his hand, the ground around him started shaking. *SCHICK* The back of old Iren burst apart and revealed distorted pairs of wings of all kinds of animals, his face warped and all sorts of apendages burst forth from beneath his skin, his body grew into a disgusting abomination with eyes casting their gazes hurriedly into the darkness. Niam held ''Phenix'' ready in his hand, arrows of pure magical might nooked between his fingers on the sun born bow, with his pair of blind eyes closed he used his exceptional hearing to aim. The goblin princess Annia tried to ready her powerful magic but much like myself she couldn''t keep the trembling from stopping, she couldn''t withstand the powerful auras that flooded this room.


    My companions readied their weapons but I was still tightly clenched in the grasps of fear. I willed my body to move, to unleash my hidden might, but I couldn''t. The fear that I would anger whatever beast preyed with dark eyes on us was to overwhelming, I did not want to lose my dear life, I still had so much to achieve. I would not die here even if it meant to cast away my dignity. Selfish, ain''t I?


    "Youuuuuuu...", tremors sperseded the thick silence. The voice cried out, flames began to flicker around us, all under one command. Flanked by heat the room quickly turned into a living hell. "...DARE TO SPEAK UP?! DARE TO COMMAND ME?!", with aghast eyes I watched how lightless flames hurled themselves at Aires; irked at our leader''s impudence this incarnation of destruction sent out its voiceless minions with their broken laughter.


    "Watch out!", an involuntary shout escaped my lips. As the one seated opposite of Aires it was only me that had seen the creeping shadows that threatened to devour him. If I could help I would, but I certainly won''t oppose this destructive being.


    ------------ 3rd person now


    Aires jumped from his seat, the fire quickly crashing into the magically enchanted wood he sat on only moments ago, combusting it in instants.


    He thanked the draconic princess in his mind, words would only be a waste of important energy. As the strongest of all present he could barely estimate the power of their mysterious foe and concluded that this fight would prove as difficult, most likely ending in a few of them dead.


    Blood trickled from his right arm as a black flame drilled itself deeper into his flesh, by using his own magical force he suffocated the small black flamelet. He gave the grievous wound a short look. His flesh was charred black, blood flowed unceasingly. ''How can this be?!'', Aires exclaimed.


    Gnashing his teeth he tried to push the pain into a far away corner where it wouldn''t hinder him any longer. As he did so his wrist suddenly flicked forward, giving rise to a crackling tether of red lightning that whipped across the room in search for the enemy.


    ''DAMN! DAMN! DAMN!'', Aires cursed as the crackling whip pounced at all places simultaneously, chasing an invisible opponent that seemed to be omnipresent.


    *BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!*, the thundering whip cracked apart the stone walls, carving red clefts into the brittle rock and causing the whole complex to shake. Sentient the whip continued to lash out at the hundreds of flames that were born from the darkness, breaking the walls, furniture and floor. Finally with great effort the whip managed to disperse the endless waves of blackness that was hunting down Aires.


    "WHAT IS THIS?!", the overlord''s mighty voice roared out in fury as his useless pawns were shredded by a mere demon. Ignoring the other people present Yr¨¦''s wrath was solely directed at the purple skinned mortal that dared to defy him. Unleashing a small portion of his true power he infused the cold flames with a fragment of his absolute self.


    Aires felt the change in the black tides, how they turned from small wisps of fire to humongous serpents that coiled around an invisible presence. The whip recoiled from the sea of boiling black that began to tower up to the ceiling.


    "We have to leave!", Aires shouted towards his companions that tried to collect their bearings.


    As his words reached their ears the dark fiend already lifted his hundreds of umbral claws high up into the air.


    "ANNIA!", Mekaling shouted, shacking his daughter awake from her stupor, his hands gripping her shoudlers. "We need your magic, now! AHHHH!", he roared out as his green face contorted in pain, a giant black claw tearing him out of Annia''s field of vision.


    Mekaling''s body skipped over the ground until he crashed into the stonewall with speed breaching the sound barrier. His eyes squinted in pain and ire, his hammer raised up to his chest glowed a dim earthen brown. "You fucker!", he barked out blood and spit alike. His stout yet agile body rocketed forward, his arms tensed up and the now dark brown glowing hammer smashed into the giant shade with drumming thunder. Bristling up with vitality Mekaling pressed through with his massive mallet, pushing the shadowy entity back bit by bit. "NIAM! HELP!", Mekaling shouted as countless tendrils began to swarm around him, the entity gaining its foothold back.


    "Tsk! Remember this debt Mekaling!", Niam responded severe. "Let me help you!", Aires came from the side, the charred wound on his arm still bleading profusely. "Let''s do this!", Niam smiled.


    Nuckles turning white Niam clenched his trusty bow Phenix with resolution. "Take this!", particles of bright golden dust conglomerated into a single light of gilden prominence nocked on the silken bowstring. The legendary weapon Phenix cried an elegy for the fiend it was about to cleanse before the strip of golden magnificience sped forward, piercing even space.


    Charon harnessed its power from Aires before wrapping itself around the black demon with lightning speed, keeping the black flames it spewed in a constant wrestle for supremacy.


    At the same time Annia began to focus her unqiue magic, the folding of space, time and reality itself. It was a power unseen and unheard of ever before but the strain she was put under was nothing to shrug of either. Her body quivered with each tremor of the earth, but her mind needed to keep its calm. For the sake of protecting her a giant and mutated Iren keept the remnant flame tongues and black spines under control that tried to force themselves onto Annia, the most vulnerable person here.


    "DiD yoU FiIIIiiNiSh yOuUur prePARAtiOns?!", Iren''s old voice roared and whispered, his words spasmodic and disfigured by his everchanging body.


    "N-not yet. Give me another few seconds.", Annia answered with bated breath and sweaty face.


    All the while Solais was huddled down at the nearest wall, her body trembling all over and her hands keeping her ears shut. "I don''t want to hear it! STOP IT!", she cried out with sobs strewn inbetween.


    "Oh dear, oh dear.... Why don''t you accept it? Your parents, your... pff.... ''friends'' here, no one needs you. Here my dear, take a closer look.", Yr¨¦ gripped Solais'' face with his obsidian claws and pulled her sight towards the fight. "No one cares about you, they don''t even notice that I am standing right beside you. And you know what? You deserve such a treatement. You tried to flee didn''t you? Leave your companions to die... you dirty, dirty whore.". *BAM!* Solais was sent flying by one slap of Yr¨¦, instead of retaliating she made herself as small as possible and crawled for the safe corner that presented itself before her. Red strands of sweaty and grimed hair glued to her swollen face that was peeking through her bruised hands. Her red eyes gazed fearfully at the obsidian deity that was slowly pacing forward, her pupils dilating she barely had enough strength to keep her consciousness afloat.


    "People like you, I despise them the most.", Yr¨¦ pulled her up on her hairs. "You make me sick.", Yr¨¦ spat her in the face. Solais felt the acidic liquid run down ehr face, eating into her skin and cried out in pain. "Let me go!", she shouted and started struggling. One kick landed square on Yr¨¦''s light swallowing chest, a kick powerful enough to break steel. "Y-y-you.... YOU!", in his wrath he pulled her head back and smashed it straight into the stone ground she was lying on.


    "YOU DIRTY WHORE!", Yr¨¦ pulled back and smashed her into the hard ground once again. "DON''T EVER TOUCH ME!", her skin burst apart and tainted the ground in crimson. "YOU DISGUSTING BITCH!", Yr¨¦''s hand, clutching Solais still by the head, hit down once again, her face drawing slick crimson lines in the air as he raised her up again. "N-no more.", she begged with bloody lips, broken bones and hands reaching out for forgiveness but her plea landed on deaf ears. "SHUT UP!!!!", with a wrath fueled toss Solais was thrown across the room.


    "Dammit... now I feel dirty.", Yr¨¦ cursed after looking down on his body that was sprinkled in sticky blood, the ire in his body began to consume him anew.


    *VOOM*, he vanished in a puff of smoke and reappeared right over Solais, her body leaning against the wall and her eyes hardly kept open.


    The fight came to a sudden halt as the contenders noticed the red bullet that shot through the air, followed by a bizarre creature of fire and darkness. The alliance members stared disbelieving at the true demon that stood over a bloody Solais.


    "SOLAIS!", Aires shouted and the grip around the black giant lessened. Taking this chance the fiend of black fire began to trash around and shake off Mekaling that was continously bashing onto the monster with his enchanted hammer.


    "Aires you idiot!", Niem released the arrow of light that was storing its energy for a few seconds already. In a blinding explosion of light the arrow clashed with the entity of darkness, suffusing the hall in golden sheen.


    Yr¨¦ felt the leader of this meeting, the puny demon, sprint towards him. He did not even care as he brought his face closer to Solais''. "Listen well... This is what you are. Weak, defenseless, pitiful. I could kill you...", with a sudden jerk Solais arm broke in two. "AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!", "Just like this."


    "Now... Do you want to kill me? Do you want the strength to dominate everyone else?!"


    "AAAAAHHHHHH!!! IT HURTS!", Solais squirmed around and tried to stop the blood that was flowing from her broken arm.


    "Shhhhhht! Be quiet, I am talking.", Yr¨¦ held a finger to her lips. "Even your mighty leader here...", a sudden outburst of power sent the incoming Aires flying. "Is nothing more than an ant compared to me. Let me ask you again, do you want power?", with a playful smile on his black lips Yr¨¦ awaited his answer.


    "You monster! *Pthu!* This is what I think.", Solais growled and gave her own smirk. Though she knew this marked her death she still decided to defy this monster in her last moments. Who would even guarantee her that this monster won''t just kill her if she agreed?


    Yr¨¦ wiped the spit from his face, slowly and carefully. "Hahahaha... HAHAHAHAH! SO THIS IS WHAT YOU DECIDED!", one calw rose into the air and flared up in blood red fire. "THEN SO BE IT!", his dark voice carried a promise of death within.


    "I am done!", Annia shouted and realeased her magical power. The room shock violently and thereafter ripples in space turned visible, distorting the view of those present. "Let''s get out!", Annia shouted and the ripples turned into full on tears in the fabric of space, making everything blink out of existence that they touched.


    Solais seeing the distortions wrapping around her began to smile in delight. "I won.", she whispered and shortly after disappeared, like everyone else as well.


    Yr¨¦, still standing motionless with raised claw, chuckled lightly. "You wish.", and he too vanished. In his ethereal form he couldn''t contain the askew smile that sported his cold mask of stone. "Now that you challenged me I will make you mine, you little lizard."

 Chapter nine: Panic

    (Sorry for not updating in a while. Chapter 10 is already being worked on, enjoy this chapter at least :)! )


    Solias paced through her abode. With fury in her steps she walked back and forth, wrecking her mind over a solution to her problems.


    Three days passed since she reached her capital, her empire, her safe haven. Yet her heart was drowned in a thick sludge of horror and loss of honor.


    She was thoroughly beaten, beaten bloody by simply strikes. As a proud draconian, a royal princess allthemore, she could not bear with the shame of defeat and what an utterly miserable defeat it was. It nagged at her, kept sleep at bay and a steady tremble in her steps.


    What could she do?


    Nothing.


    She felt it. She felt the might of what she tried to oppose. The split second encounter with the demon was enough to make her understand the discrepancy in strength, a chasm clefting evermore apart for each day that she waited.


    She couldn''t bear it anymore, the suspense, the unknown!


    For the past days she called for her companions, greeted by their expected answer. They should hide for now. Understandable.


    After all the demon knew of their exact location, appeared in a display of impossible might that even this world''s peaks couldn''t hope to scale ever in their immortal lifetime and crushed them all with ease. If it were only that then Solias could let herself succumb in an illusion of safety, that she was now far away from the demon, but there was the smallest nub of doubt inside her, nestling in dark corners of her heart. It called out to her, silenced her false hopes. He would be here, he will come for her. Be it the haunting wraith in her dreams or the cold body of fiery might, he would come to hunt her down.


    And she shuddered and feared in what was inevitably to come, for he would find her and paint her life a vibrant red.


    No, no, no NO! She would not allow it, she would not lose all she has amassed through her lifetime. The empire was within her grasps and only a single millenia and she was sure to reach the apex of creation. She would not lose all this, even if she had to sell her soul to the devil.


    At least her self-loathing and fury kept her with unsteady legs on the ledge towards madness, just one step and she would be consumed.


    First feeling over her vanishing scars and then over the gilden pendant around her neck she promised. ''I will get stronger, I will consume, I will become a God! I WILL NOT LOSE!'', and clenched her fists tight.


    Promises aside -what did they count in the face of an undefeatable foe?- her adversary was not something mortal, not something from this realm of creation even. It was someting far more complex, far more primal, but she could not know; not even the demon in question knew!


    But, let the mortals wish and dream as much as they want, abandoning themselves in their pitiable delusions for all eternity.


    *Knock. Knock.*


    The sudden noise jerked the ebullient princess from her fuddle.


    ¡°W-what is it?¡°, meekly she asked.


    ¡°A messenger of the demon empire has arrived. He asked for your presence, princess.¡°, the servant answered behind the closed door.


    Solias ground her teeth, there wasn''t even the slightest hint of respect in the voice of the servant. Everyone saw her as the empire''s mascot, nothing more; a dumb puppet princess!


    ¡°Did you check the messenger for weapons and the like?¡°, Solias exhaled before asking back.


    Slightly peeved the servant answered back with annoyance in his tone. ¡°Of course we did, princess... We would not want anyone to harm you, no, we certainly wouldn''t want that.¡°


    ''Tsk, you insolent bastard. Soon you will pay, all of you...'', Solias cursed but kept her composure. She was the laughing stock of the empire yet she couldn''t give in to the insults thrown at her. Firmly and with faked elation she gave her thanks. ¡°Now then, I will prepare myself.¡°


    ¡°Of course princess¡°, and the servant''s presence vanished from behind the door.


    *BOOM. CRACK.*


    ¡°DAMN! THOSE FOOLS!¡°, the table shuddered before splitting atwain.


    ¡°They know nothing... Indulging in their sweet comfort, ignorant of the waging war outside! Stupid fools!¡°, Solias hissed and spit but her anger only kept surging. She was known for her strength but to keep her farce sound she had to play the ditz of her family. All brawns no brain in short. But after countless years of humilation, swaggering nobles and deriding parents her mental fortitude reached its limits, soon she would ascend to the throne, through bloody revolution if need be.


    Though she was infuriated her thoughts wandered back to what the servant told her. This messenger of the demons could be from the alliance and she would surely not want to miss that.


    Solias sluggishly whiped on a deep blue robe, contrasting with her ever red hair and brilliant crimson eyes.


    ¡°Let''s go see that messenger.¡°, she grumbled and left through the marbled door.


    With swift steps she passed by quaint paintings of long dead master artists and meticulously arranged sculptures, on top of a long velvet carpet that stretched as far as one could see.


    As traditions commanded Solias snaked with her light steps towards the throne room, greeting her parents in a mutual play of obviously faked affection.


    Bursting unrefined through the door, like it was expected from her character, she stopped with rough stutters in front of a currently well-attended throne room. Nobles in all kinds of pompous attire -a disgusting display of worldly wealth and arrogance- knitted their brows. With scrutinizing gaze they watched the shameful behaviour of the one they must call princess.


    But none let their attention linger for to long on their disgraceful royalty, they had more important matters to attend to. Such as propounding the state of the nation''s economy, foreign-policy affairs and the like. In a nutshell, a whole lot of lies and deceit.


    With feigned -what else in such a false world- alert they listened to one another, proposing their ideas to their leaders.


    On a small gilden throne sat Alexa Asterion, the matriarch of the succubi race. Seconds prior she was listening to the incoherent babble of her vassals but right now her attention shifted onto her useles spawn. Her violet hair cascaded over her delicate shoulders and rested on her suple bossom. Her dark purple lips -impossibly charming- twitched in accordance to her sharp and piercing black eyes. From above Alexa stared her imbecile of a daughter down with a deathglare and yet managed to crack a small smile.


    ¡°Oh! My wonderful daughter, I have not expected you.¡°, her soft voice carried through the room like a lithe fairy, dancing playfully in one''s ears, but for Solias each word was spoken with contempt. ¡°Would you like to tell your dear mother what you need?¡°


    If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.Before the exasperated princess could retort, going against her previous plan of not ripping her mother to shreds, another voice interrupted; much in favor of the arrogant matriach that barely avoided her death through her daughter''s claws.


    ¡°My, my, Alexa, let our dear daughter catch her breath first.¡°, a deep voice resounded through the hall.


    On alexa''s side stood another throne made entirely from Lucrid, a mineral closely ressembling marble if not for its unique feature of amplifying elemental light and storing it within.


    Right now a beast of a man -or should one say, a dragon of a man?- was seated on the exceedingly white throne. Log thick arms rested at the side and a barrel wide chest tauted the golden robe the King of Dragons was tightly clothed in. Excorus Astarion, the current patriarch of the Heavenly Dragons and King of all Dragons. ''If he knew...'', Solias mused in ridicule as she thought about Bahl Zebul, the true king of dragons in her eyes.


    Excorus smiled ''warmly'' at his ''beloved'' daughter.


    He gently held his wife''s hands, his gaze not once breaking from Solias. With a small tilt he urged Solias to explain herself. At least he managed to keep his temper whilst disregarding the throng of nobles with red faces, chagrined by their superior selves being ignored.


    ¡°Huff... Huff... a-a servant t-o-told me that... hah... a messenger from the demon capital was here and... and he asked for my presence.¡°, Solias finished with hands stemming against her waist, breathign heavily.


    One should now begin to ask himself. How come they are that stupid? The princess is millenia old yet she is being underestimated, how can such a thing be? It is simple. Hybris has no bounds. Let''s leave it at that.


    ¡°A messenger? I know of no such thing.¡°, the king answered in bafflement.


    As if on cue the crowd of nobles began to stir. A few shouts of surprise and bewilderment later a black shade stepped forth from the wall of pomp.


    Hunched down a black robe swayed over the ground with soft rustles. The cowl hung deep into the face of the unknown figure, left much to the imagination about this person''s appearance.


    Everyone''s focus now laid on the figure whose robe seemed to weigh more than the person in question, a losing battle against gravity was fought as the hump increased by the second.


    Gaunt fingers latched from their sleeves onto the hood of the robe, clawing with their dead and dying flesh onto the fabric with an unnatural ferocity. The dark cowl was pulled back with a low grunt followed up by a wafting smell of decay filling the room.


    The first few nobles rocked forward, their intestines revolting against the sight that claimed all their senses hostage. With tears in their eyes they averted their gaze only for them to be sucked back in by the alluring image of withering life.


    Corpse colored flesh sprinkled graciously with yellow furuncles frantically clung onto a languid visage, glaring with beady eyes into the air.


    Its face not directly settling on the ground and neither at the emperors the living floater gawked at the princess. With intense light in its eyes not yet taken by death the man continued gaping onward.


    Derelict skin curtained from a slack jaw, the man tore his foul maw open. The few patches of hair on the old and raspy scalp swayed to and fro like small halms of sere grass.


    A black tongue coiled through crimson flesh. ¡°Pleasure meeting you.¡°, the man whailed with a racuous croak.


    The fleshen patchwork cracked a most awful smirk. Its eyes, seamed by vermillion veins and a single pitch black fire ignited within, darted through the room. Giving a contemplative expression it spoke up.


    ¡°My master wishes to meet you.¡°, it rattled with an incongruent voice, mismatched between its agape maw and whistling rives along its palid throat.


    ¡°What are you?¡°, Excorus inquired with a sharp gaze. Whatever this creature was, its master should be no less than a greater devil. A living corpse? Only few were able to achieve such a feat.


    ¡°It does not matter.¡°, the corpse waved him off with its bony fingers. ¡°The matter at hand has greater importance.¡°


    ¡°Why my... daughter?¡°, Alexa chimed in from the side. Her voice contained worry, curiosity and a touch of fear. It was not the being in itself that made her hold her breath, make her blood flow backwards, but rather the residue tinge of aura left on its decaying body.


    After tweaking a bit with its askew robe the undead marveled at the cunningness of the empress. Its life could be considered a short one yet it clearly felt the teeming contempt for the princess its master took a fancy to. It surely would not let its master future slave be insulted like that! But it had no strength whatsoever to speak of. So what should it do? A flash of genius hit it. Two can play that role!


    ¡°Hehehe.¡°, the undead threw its head back, a hand stiffling the errupting laughter.


    The audience watched on confused, confused about what would warrant such a response.


    ¡°You would not understand, you cretin.¡°, it spat the words out and smiled unabashed. ¡°These matters only concern us.¡°, it stressed and pointed at Solias.


    ¡°What?!¡°, Alexa was baffled. Who would dare to speak like that to her, the queen, the empress! Unbelievable!


    ¡°You still don''t understand? Y?????o????u??? ??f???o????o???l??i???s?????h?????l?????????i??????????z???????????????????a?????????????????r???????????????d?????????? ?????????w??????????o???????????????m?????????a????????????????n???????????...-!¡°.


    ¡°Hmph.¡°, Excorus coughed and the whole building began to tremble.¡°Get lost.¡°, as he swiped once the undead simply vanished, its existence errased from this realm with only black ash as a memorial. The quaking stopped shortly after, much to the relief of the panicking nobles which began indulging into frantic chatters thereafter, debatting who this master is that the undead spoke of.


    ¡°What an imbecile.¡°, he whispered while massaging his temples. ¡°A mere undead mocking us, what has this world come to?¡°, Excorus slumped back into his throne, mentally exhausted.


    Red faced Alexa glared at her daughter. ¡°Do you have any idea who that was?¡°, the pressure she emitted stressed her spite laced words, made it not less obvious about her animosity towards her own daughter. Yet there was no response, not a muscle twitching or a change in demeanor. Solias was frozen on the spot for a good minute.


    Time passed with a crawling pace while Alexa stared her daughter down with frothing hatred. ¡°I am speaking with you!¡°, she shouted but Solias only gave a defeated smile in response and shifted her mocking face towards her parents.


    ¡°You should flee.¡°, she whispered loud enough for all to hear; with a heavy heart. ¡°He is coming for me.¡°. Her words carried on through the throne hall until oblivion took them in its embrace.


    Then... the world began trembling.